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THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN EDITION 

VOLUME 23 

THE CHRONICLES 

OF AMERICA SERIES 

ALLEN JOHNSON 

EDITOR 

GERHARD R. LOMER 

CHARLES W. JEFFERYS 

ASSISTANT EDITORS 



.ij!(nuiii«y 



JUAN BAUTISTA DE ANZA, FOUNDER OF SAN 
FRANCISCO. 1776 

By courtesy of a descendant of Anza, John F. Biven, San Mateo, 
California. 



THE 
SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

A CHRONICLE OF OLD 

FLORIDA AND THE SOUTHWEST 

BY HERBERT E. BOLTON 



LVXET 




NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

TORONTO: GLASGOW. BROOK & CO. 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1921 



E/Z3 

.£ 7 



Copyright, 1921, by Yale University Press 



AUG 20 1921 n 

0)GI.A622475 



/^? 



2^^ 



PREFACE 

This book is to tell of Spanish pathfinders and 
pioneers in the regions between Florida and Cali- 
fornia, now belonging to the United States, over 
which Spain held sway for centuries. These were 
the northern outposts of New Spain, maintained 
chiefly to hold the country against foreign intrud- 
ers and against the inroads of savage tribes. They 
were far from the centers of Spanish colonial 
civilization, in the West Indies, Central America, 
Mexico, and Peru. 

%, The rule of Spain has passed; but her colonies 
have grown into independent nations. From Mex- 
ico to Chile, throughout half of America, the 
Spanish language and Spanish institutions are still 
dominant. Even in the old borderlands north of 
the Rio Grande, the imprint of Spain's sway is 
still deep and clear. The names of four States — 
Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and California — are 



viii PREFACE 

Spanish in form. Scores of rivers and mountains 
and hundreds of towns and cities in the United 
States still bear the names of saints dear to the 
Spanish pioneers J Southwestern Indians yet speak 
Spanish in preference to English. Scores of the 
towns have Spanish quarters, where the life of the 
old days still goes on and where the soft Castilian 
tongue is still spoken. Southwestern English has 
been enriched by Spanish contact, and hundreds of 
words of Spanish origin are in current use in speech 
and print everywhere along the border. 

Throughout these Hispanic regions now in An- 
glo-American hands, Spanish architecture is still 
conspicuous. Scattered all the way from Georgia 
to San Francisco are the ruins of Spanish missions. \ 
Others dating from the old regime are yet well pre- 
served and are in daily use as chapels. From bel- 
fries in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and 
California, still sound bells cast in Spain and bear- 
ing the royal arms. In many of the towns, and 
here and there in open country, old-time adobes 
are still to be seen. Moreover, the Spanish ele- 
ment has furnished the motif for a new type of 



PREFACE ix 

architecture in the Southwest that has become 
one of the most distinctive American possessions. 
In Cahfornia, Texas, and Arizona, the type is 
dominated by mission architecture. In New Mex- 
ico it is strongly modified by the native culture 
which found expression in pueblo building/ 

There are still other marks of Spanish days 
on the southern border. We see them in social, 
religious, economic, and even in legal customs. 
California has her Portola festival, her rodeos, and 
her Mission Play. Everywhere in the Southwest 
there are quaint church customs brought from 
Spain or Mexico by the early pioneers. From 
the Spaniard the American cowboy inherited his 
trade, his horse, his outfit, his vocabulary, and his 
methods. Spain is stamped on the land surveys. 
From Sacramento to St. Augustine nearly every- 
body holds his land by a title going back to Mexico 
or Madrid. Most of the farms along the border are 
divisions of famous grants which are still known by 
their original Spanish names. In the realm of law, 
principles regarding mines, water rights on streams, 
and the property rights of women — to mention 



X PREFACE 

only a few — have been retained from the Spanish 
regime in the Southwest.? Not least has been the 
Hispanic appeal to the imagination. The Spanish 
occupation has stamped the literature of the bor- 
derlands and has furnished theme and color for a 
myriad of writers, great and small. Nor is this His- 
panic cult — or culture — losing its hold. On the 
contrary, it is growing stronger. In short, the 
Southwest is as Spanish in color and historical 
background as New England is Puritan, as New 
York is Dutch, or as New Orleans is French. K 

My original manuscript for this book was written 
on a much larger scale than the Editor desired. 
In the work of reduction and rewriting, to fit it for 
the Series, I have had the able assistance of Miss 
Constance Lindsay Skinner. 

H. E. B. 

Universitt of California, 
October, 1920. 



\.' 



CONTENTS 

The Explorers 

I. PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON. AND 

NARVAEZ Page 1 

II. CABEZA DE VACA " 28 

III.. HERNANDO DE SOTO " 46 

IV. CORONADO, CABRILLO, AND VIZCAINO " 79 





The Colonies 




V. 


FLORIDA 


' 120 


VI. 


NEW MEXICO 


' 165 


VII. 


THE JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE ' 


' 188 


VIII. 


TEXAS 


' 207 


IX. 


LOUISIANA 


' 232 


X. 


CALIFORNIA 


* 258 




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


' 297 




INDEX 


' 305 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

JUAN BAUTISTA DE ANZA, FOUNDER 
OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1776 

By courtesy of a descendant of Anza, John 

F. Biven, San Mateo, California. Frontispiece 

EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT OF 
NORTHERN NEW SPAIN, 1518-1776 
Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- 
graphical Society. Facing page 16 

OLD CITY GATEWAY, ST. AUGUSTINE, 
FLORIDA 

Drawing from a photograph. " " 64 

EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR OF CHURCH 
AT SANTA CRUZ, NEW MEXICO 

Drawings from photographs. " " IgS 

CALIFORNIA METHOD OF CATCHING 

CATTLE, WITH A DISTANT VIEW OF 

MISSION OF SAN JOSE 
Lithograph by L. M. Lefevre, from a draw- 
ing by Captain W. Smyth, R.N. In Cali- 
fornia, a History, by Alexander Forbes 
(1839). " '' 160 

THE MISSION OF SAN CARLOS, NEAR 
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA 

Lithograph from a sketch by Captain W. 
Smyth, R.N. In California, a History, by 
Alexander Forbes (1839). " " 198 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE BELFRY OF SAN GABRIEL MIS- 
SION, CALIFORNIA 

Drawing from a photograph. Facing page 82^ 

PORTRAIT OF A NATIVE INDIAN OF 
CALIFORNIA 

Lithograph from a sketch by Captain W. 
Smyth, R.N. In California, a History, by 
Alexander Forbes (1839). " " 2j^0 

SANTA BARBARA MISSION, CALIFOR- 
NIA 

Drawing from a photograph. " " 272 



THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 
CHAPTER I 

PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, AND NARVAEZ 

The sixteenth century dawned auspiciously for 
Spain. After eight hundred years of warfare with 
the infidel usurpers of the Peninsula, the last Mos- 
lem stronghold had fallen ; and, through the union 
of Aragon and Castile, all Spain was united under 
one crown and lifted to the peak of power in Europe. 
To the world about her, Spain presented the very 
image of unity, wealth, and power, adamantine 
and supreme. 

But the image of serene absolutism is always a 
portent of calamity. There followed a period of 
brilliant achievement abroad, while the prosperity 
of the nation at home steadily declined. Taxation 
was exorbitant. Industry declined because of the 
lack of skilled workers, for the expulsion of the 



-r 



2 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Moors had robbed Spain of artisans and pastoral 
laborers. The nobles and gentry were swordsmen, 
crusaders, and spoilers of the Egyptians — made 
such by centuries of war with the Moors — and 
they held all labor and trade in scorn. 

Each year, more of the gold which annually 
poured into the Emperor's lap must needs be 
poured out again for products which were no longer 
grown or manufactured within the realm. Gold 
was the monarch's need; gold was the dazzling lure 
which the warrior nobles of Spain followed. There 
were no longer Egyptians at home to spoil. To the 
New World must these warrior nobles now look 
for work for their swords and for wealth without 
menial toil or the indignities of commerce. Only on 
that far frontier could they hope to enjoy the per- 
sonal liberty and something of their old feudal pow- 
ers, now curtailed by absolutism at home. Irked 
by restrictions and surveillance as well as by inac- 
tion or poverty, these sons of the sword sought 
again on this soil the freedom which was once the 
Spaniard's birthright. 

Adventure, conquest, piety, wealth, were the 
ideals of those Spanish explorers, who, pushing 
northward from the West Indies and from the City 
of Mexico, first planted the Cross and the banner 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 3 

of Spain in the swamps of Florida and in the arid 
plateaus of New Mexico, i^ The conquistadors who 
threaded the unknown way through the American 
wilderness were armored knights upon armored 
horses; proud, stern, hardy, and courageous; men of 
punctilious honor, loyal to King and Mother Church, 
humble only before the symbols of their Faith; 
superstitious — believing in portents and omens 
no less than in the mysteries of the Church, for the 
magic of Moorish soothsayers and astrologers had 
colored the life of their ancestors for generations. 

Part pagan, however, the conquistador was no 
less a zealous warrior for Church and King. His 
face was as flint against all heretics. He went forth 
for the heathen's gold and the heathen's soul. If 
he succeeded, riches and honor were his. Hard- 
ship, peril, death, had no terrors for this soldier- 
knight. If he was pitiless towards others, so was 
he pitiless toward himself. He saw his mission 
enveloped with romantic glory. Such men were 
the conquistadors, who, after the capture of the 
Aztec capital in the summer of 1521, carried the 
Spanish banner northward. 

While Cortes was still wrestling with the Aztecs, 
Spanish expeditions were moving out from the 
West Indies — Espanola (Hayti) , Cuba, Porto 



4 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Rico, and Jamaica. These islands are well called 
the nursery of Spanish culture in the Western 
Hemisphere, By 1513 there were seventeen towns 
on Espanola alone, in which the life of Old Spain 
was reproduced in form, though reflecting the col- 
ors of savage environment. Mines were worked by 
enslaved natives; grain was sown and harvested; 
cotton and sugar-cane were cultivated. The slave 
trade in negroes and Indians flourished. Friars 
cared for the souls of the faithful. The harbor 
winds were winged with Spanish sails, homeward 
bound with rich cargoes, or set towards the coast 
of the mysterious continent which should one day 
disclose to the persistent mariner an open strait 
leading westward to Cathay. In the midst of the 
crudities of a frontier, hidalgo and official of Es- 
panola lived joyously and with touches of Oriental 
magnificence. Gold! It lay in glittering heaps 
upon their dicing-tables. It stung not only their 
imaginations but their palates — so we learn from 
the description of a banquet given by one of them, at 
which, to the music of players brought from Spain, 
the guests salted their savory meats with gold dust. 
Is it to be marveled at that men of such hardy diges- 
tions should have conquered a wilderness bravely 
and gayly.? 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 5 

Among these romantic exiles at Espanola was 
Juan Ponce de Leon — John of the Lion's Paunch — 
who had come to the island with Columbus in 1493r 
as a member of the first permanent colony. In 
Ponce's veins flowed the bluest blood of Spain. His 
family could be traced back to the twelfth century. 

Rumors of gold drew Ponce to Porto Rico (1508), 
which island he "pacified," after the very thorough 
Spanish manner, sharing the honors of valor with 
the famous dog, Bercerillo. This dog, according to 
the old historian, Herrera, "made wonderful hav- 
ock among these people, and knew which of them 
were in war and which in peace, like a man; for 
which reason the Indians were more afraid of ten 
Spaniards with the dog, than of one hundred with- 
out him, and therefore he had one share and a half of 
all that was taken allowed him, as was done to one 
that carried a crossbow, as well in gold as slaves 
and other things, which his master received. Very 
extraordinary things were reported of this dog."^ 

Ponce was made Governor of Porto Rico, but 
was almost immediately removed, as the appoint- 
ment had been made over the head of Don Diego 
Columbus, Governor of Espanola. Thus dispos- 
sessed of office, Ponce sought fame, and wealth, and 

' Lowery, Spanish Settlements, p. 133. 



6 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

perpetual youth, perhaps, in exploration. "It is 
true," writes Herrera, the royal chronicler, "that 
besides the principal aim of Juan Ponce de Leon in 
the expedition which he undertook, which was to 
discover new lands, . . . another was to seek the 
fountain of Bimini and a certain river of Florida. 
It was said and believed by the Indians of Cuba 
and Espanola that by bathing in the river or the 
fountain, old men became youths." What more 
was needed to fire the blood of an adventurer like 
Ponce, who already possessed influence and a for- 
tune.'^ Nothing, as the event proved. By means of 
his friends he obtained a patent from King Charles 
(1512), later Emperor Charles V, authorizing him 
to seek and govern the island of Bimini, which 
rumor placed to the northwest. 

What Ponce hoped to accomplish in the enter- 
prise, and also the aims of his brother conquerors, 
can be gathered from his patent. If Ponce was an 
explorer and adventurer, he, like the others, hoped 
also to be a colonizer, a transplanter of Spanish 
people and of Spanish civilization. Whoever fails 
to understand this, fails to understand the patriotic 
aim of the Spanish pioneers in America. The 
Catholic monarchs were a thrifty pair, and they 
made the business of conquest pay for itself. The 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 7 

successes of men like Columbus and Cortes played 
into their hands. Every expedition was regarded 
as a good gamble. The expenses of exploration 
therefore were charged to the adventurer, under 
promise of great rewards, in titles and profits from 
the enterprise, if any there might be. Under these 
circumstances the sovereigns lost little in any case, 
and they might win untold returns. And so with 
Ponce. By the terms of his grant he was empow- 
ered to equip a fleet, at his own expense, people 
Bimini with Spaniards, exploit its wealth, and, as 
adelantado, govern it in the name of the sovereign. 
In keeping with the method already in vogue in the 
West Indies, the natives were to be distributed 
among the discoverers and settlers, that they might 
be protected, christianized, civilized, and, sad to 
say, exploited. Though the intent of this last pro- 
vision in the royal patents of the day was benevo- 
lent, the practical result to the natives was usually 
disastrous. 

With a fleet of three vessels, on March 3, 1513, 
Ponce sailed from Porto Rico and anchored a 
month later on the coast of the northern mainland, 
near the mouth of the St. John's River. Here he 
landed, took formal possession of the "island," and 
named it La Florida, because of its verdant beauty 



8 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

and because it was discovered in the Easter season. 
After sailing northward for a day, Ponce turned 
south again. Twice in landing on the coast he and 
his men were set upon by the natives. On Sunday, 
the 8th of May, he doubled Cape Canaveral, called 
by him the Cape of the Currents; and by the fif- 
teenth he was coasting along the Florida Keys. 
The strain of romance in these old explorers is well 
illustrated by the name which Ponce, seeker of the 
Fountain of Youth, gave to the Florida Keys. 
"The Martyrs," he called them, because the high 
rocks, at a distance, looked "like men who are 
suffering." 

Ponce sailed up the western shore of the penin- 
sula, perhaps as far north as Pensacola Bay, be- 
fore he again turned southward, still unaware that 
Florida was not an island. Anchored off the south- 
ern end of Florida, he allowed himself to fall into a 
snare set for him by natives. These natives told 
an interesting story. There was nearby, they said, 
a cacique named Carlos whose land fairly sprouted 
gold. While Ponce and his oflBcers were drinking 
in the splendid tale, the Indians were massing 
canoes for an attack on the Spanish ships. Two 
battles followed before the painted warriors were 
driven off and the Spaniards sailed homeward 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 9 

without either a sight of gold or a taste of the 
magic spring. But his voyage was not fruitless, 
for on the way back to Espanola Ponce made a val- 
uable find. He discovered the Bahama Channel, 
which later became the route for treasure ships re- 
turning to Spain from the West Indies. It was to 
protect this channel that Florida eventually had to 
be colonized. 

Ponce proceeded at once to Spain, where he 
"went about like a person of importance, because 
his qualities merited it." From the King he re- 
ceived another patent (1514) authorizing him to 
colonize not only "Bimini," which one of his ships 
was said to have discovered, but the "Island of 
Florida" as well. Just now, however, renewed com- 
plaints came in of terrible devastations wrought 
upon Spanish colonies by the Caribs of the Lesser 
Antilles. Ponce was put in command of a fleet 
to subdue these ferocious savages, and his plans 
for Florida were delayed seven years. 

Meanwhile other expeditions from the West In- 
dies found Florida to be part of the mainland. By 
1519, indeed, the entire coast of the Gulf between 
Yucatan and Florida had been explored and 
charted, thus ending the Spanish hope of finding 
there a strait leading westward to India. Chief 



10 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

among these explorers of the Gulf was the good 
pilot Pineda, agent of the governor of Jamaica. He 
mapped the coast of Amichel — as the Spaniards 
called the Texas coast — and was the one to dis- 
cover the mouth of that large river flowing into the 
Gulf which he named the Espiritu Santo, but which 
we know today as the Mississippi. This was 
twenty-two years before De Soto crossed the Fa- 
ther of Waters near Memphis. Amichel was a 
wondrous land, indeed, according to the reports 
dispatched to Spain by Pineda's master. It had 
gold in plenty and two distinct native races, giants 
and pygmies. 

At last Ponce returned to his task. On Febru- 
ary 10, 1521, at Porto Rico, he wrote to King 
Charles: "Among my services I discovered at my 
own cost and charge, the Island of Florida and 
others in its district . . . and now I return to 
that Island, if it please God's will, to settle it."^ 
According to Herrera, the rare old chronicler, it was 
emulation of the conqueror of Mexico that aroused 
Ponce to make this venture. For now "the name 
of Hernando Cortes was on everybody's lips and 

' Lowery, Spanish Settlements, p. 158, quoting Shea's transla- 
tion in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, 
p. 234. 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 11 

his fame was great." In February, then, Ponce 
again set sail, with two ships, two hundred 
men, fifty horses, a number of other domestic 
animals, and farm implements to cultivate the 
soil. By the King's command, monks and priests 
accompanied him for missionary work among 
the natives. 

Ponce landed on the Florida coast, probably in 
the neighborhood of Charlotte Harbor, where, on 
his earlier voyage, the natives had regaled him with 
fables of the golden realm of Carlos, the cacique, 
and had attacked his ships. Since then slave-hunt- 
ing raids along their coast had filled these warlike, 
freedom-loving Florida natives with an intense ha- 
tred for Spanish invaders. Hardly had the colo- 
nists begun to build houses when the Indians set 
upon them with fury. The valiant Ponce, leading 
his men in a counter attack, received an Indian ar- 
row in his body. Some of his followers were killed. 
This disaster put an end to the enterprise. Ponce 
and his colonists departed and made port at Cuba, 
having lost a ship on the way. A few days later 
Ponce died from his wounds, leaving unsolved the 
mystery of the Fountain of Youth. Over his grave 
in Porto Rico, where his body was sent for burial, 
his epitaph was thus inscribed: 



12 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Here rest the bones of a Lion, 
Mightier in deeds than in name. ' 

So perished the discoverer and first foreign ruler 
of Florida, as many another standard-bearer of the 
white race on this soil was to perish, from the 
dart of the irreconcilable Indian. The conquest 
of the Aztecs, living in permanent towns, proved 
comparatively easy for Cortes, with his superior 
means of waging war; but the subjection of the 
northern tribes, who had no fixed abodes, who wan- 
dered over hundreds of miles in hunting and war, 
was another task. Europeans began the conquest of 
America by seizing the Indians and selling them into 
slavery. It is an oft-repeated boast that tyranny 
has never thrived on American soil, but it is sel- 
dom remembered that the first battles for freedom 
in this land were fought by the red natives. 

Meanwhile a new star arose to beckon explorers 
northward. A new region had been discovered far 
up the eastern coast by adventurers who were spy- 
ing about Florida while Ponce was absent at the 
Carib wars. Chief of these interlopers was Lucas 

"" Mole sub hac fortis Requiescunt ossa Leonis 
Qui Vicit factis Nomina magna suis." 

Lowery, Spanish Settlements, p. 160. 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 13 

Vasquez de Ayllon, an oidor, or superior judge, of 
Espanola, who took into his service one Francisco 
Gordillo and sent him out to explore. Gordillo met 
in the Bahamas a slave hunter named Quexos, and 
the two joined company. Thus it happened that in 
June, 1521, about the time that Ponce was driven 
from Florida, these two adventurers landed in a 
region, called Chicora by the natives, which seems 
to have been near the Cape Fear River on the 
Carolina coast. After taking formal possession 
of the country, they coaxed one hundred and fifty 
of their red-skinned hosts on board and sailed 
away to sell them in Santo Domingo. This time a 
rude shock awaited the slave hunters. When they 
reached the capital they were ordered by Governor 
Diego Columbus to set the Indians free and return 
them to their native land. Don Diego deserves 
remembrance as a liberator. 

Among the captives, however, there was one 
whom the Spaniards detained. They baptized him 
Francisco Chicorana, and Ayllon took him as his 
personal servant. Francisco was a choice wag. 
Doubtless because he desired to be taken home, he 
employed his time and talents in regaling his cap- 
tors with romances of Chicora. He was taken by 
Ayllon to Spain, where two famous historians. 



14 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Peter Martyr and Oviedo, got from him at first 
hand and preserved for us these earliest tales 
of Carolina. 

According to Francisco the natives of Chicora 
were white, with brown hair hanging to their heels. 
In the country there were pearls and other precious 
stones. There were domesticated deer, which lived 
in the houses of the natives and generously fur- 
nished them milk and cheese. The people were gov- 
erned by a giant king called Datha, whose enor- 
mous size was not natural but had been produced 
by softening and stretching his bones in childhood. 
He told, too, of a race of men with inflexible tails, 
"like the tailed Englishmen of Kent," says a 
Spanish humorist. ' ' This tail was not movable like 
those of quadrupeds, but formed one mass, as is the 
case with fish and crocodiles, and was as hard as 
bone. When these men wished to sit down, they 
had consequently to have a seat with an open bot- 
tom; and if there were none, they had to dig a hole 
more than a cubit deep to hold their tails and allow 
them to rest." If any one be disposed to doubt 
these stories let him ponder well what Peter Mar- 
tyr says : " Each may accept or reject my account 
as he chooses. Envy is a plague natural to the 
human race, always seeking to depreciate and to 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 15 

search for weeds in another's garden. . . . This 
pest afflicts the fooHsh, or persons devoid of hter- 
ary culture, who live useless lives like cumberers 
of the earth." ^ 

Encouraged by these yarns, in 1523 Ayllon ob- 
tained from Charles V the desired patent to Chi- 
cora, the land of the Giant King. As in the case of 
Bimini, the project was a gamble, and, like Ponce, 
Ayllon put up the money. Chicora was not the sole 
objective. Ayllon was to continue his explorations 
north for eight hundred leagues, or until he found 
the strait leading westward to Asia, which, if found, 
must be explored. Of the lands discovered he was 
to be adelantado, or governor. He was to have for 
himself in full ownership an estate fifteen leagues 
square — a round million acres. He was to take 
with him, at the royal expense, friars to convert 
the Indians, and, in view of the sad results in the 
islands, Indians were not to be parceled out or 
forced to work. Experience was having its effect 
on the royal policy. 

Three years passed before Ayllon was ready to 
take possession of his domain, but in the interval 
further explorations along the coast were made 
by his pilot Quexos, who brought back glowing 

' De Orbe Novo (ed. by F. A. MacNutt), vol. n, pp. 258-59. 




.4 

\ I// ^ V :^ 

EXPLOR\TION AND SE ' 

OF 

NORTHERN NEW SPMN | J^ *7 

1518-1776 °1 s'vWv czi 



Scale 1:15,700,000 
I ■ at an «■ mn«c 






COROMADO IS4Q f . Presidio.J '*'""^<''y 



16 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

reports of gold, silver, and pearls. And at the 
same time Esteban Gomez, a pilot who had been 
with Magellan — and had deserted him — came 
out from Spain, looking for the northern strait, and 
sailed the American coast between Nova Scotia and 
Florida. Thus, by the year 1525, Spanish naviga- 
tors had explored the entire shore line from Cape 
Breton to Cape Horn. 

At length, in July, 1526, Ayllon sailed from 
Espanola with six vessels carrying five hundred 
men and women from the islands, some black 
slaves, eighty-nine horses, and other equipment 
for the colony. It was a force larger than that 
with which Cortes had invaded Mexico. There 
were also three Dominican friars; for, wrote the 
King, *'Our principal intent in the discovery of 
new lands is that the inhabitants and natives 
thereof, who are without the light or knowledge 
of the faith, may be brought to understand the 
truths of our Holy Catholic Faith, that they 
may come to a knowledge thereof and be- 
come Christians and be saved, and this is the 
chief motive that you are to bear and hold in 
this affair."^ 

' Lowery, Spanish Settlements, p. 162. From Shea's transla- 
tion in The Catholic Church in Colonial Days, p. 105. 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 17 

Ayllon anchored his ships at the mouth of a river, 
probably the Cape Fear, which, with romantic op- 
timism, he named the Jordan. In making port he 
lost one of his ships with its cargo, and this led to 
the construction on the spot of an open boat with 
one mast, to be propelled by both oars and sail. 
Here we have the first shipbuilding of record in the 
United States. From this place exploring parties 
went out by sea and others pushed a short way in- 
land. A misfortune now befell Ayllon. His inter- 
preter, the romancer, Francisco Chicorana, seized 
the opportunity so long waited for and deserted to 
his people. Ayllon was thus unable to talk to the 
Chicorans and convince them of his friendly intent. 
This region, however, about a dangerous harbor, 
looked uninviting, and no more was needed than 
the news of a pleasanter land, brought by returning 
explorers, to start Ayllon and his colonists south- 
ward. Down the coast they all went to the mouth 
of the Pedee River — the Gualdape, Ayllon called 
it — and there began the settlement of San Miguel 
de Gualdape. 

But the settlement came quickly to grief. The 
blasts of an exceptionally cold winter struck down 
many of the colonists. Provisions gave out. The 
settlers were too weakened by exposure and disease 



18 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

to catch the fish which abounded in the river. 
Ayllon himself sank under the hardship and priva- 
tion; and, on St. Luke's Day, October 18, 1526, he 
died. Quarrels ensued among the survivors. Muti- 
neers under an ambitious oflacer imprisoned the lieu- 
tenant who succeeded Ayllon in command; and, in 
turn, negro slaves rose and fired the house of the 
usurper. Indians, encouraged by the domestic im- 
broglio, made attacks and killed some of the Span- 
iards. It was now resolved to abandon the colony 
and return to Santo Domingo. About a hundred 
and fifty enfeebled and destitute men and women 
set sail in midwinter, towing after them the body of 
their dead commander in the one-masted craft they 
had built. As they made their slow way home- 
ward, seven men were frozen to death on board one 
of the ships. The icy winds and sea, which lashed 
the small vessels about and took the lives of these 
emaciated sailors, took also their toll of the dead. 
The boat bearing Ayllon 's body was swept away; 
and, weighted full with water, it sank, says Oviedo 
the historian, in "the sepulchre of the ocean-sea 
where have been and shall be put other captains 
and governors." 

Florida and Chicora : these were still but names, 
but names now heightened in romance by the 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 19 

tragic deaths of Ponce and Ayllon and by new 
tales heard in the wilderness. 

The Northern Mystery was still unsolved, and it 
was not long before another attempt was made to 
settle Florida. The enterprise was undertaken this 
time by Panfilo de Narvaez, the same Narvaez who 
in 1520 had been sent to Vera Cruz to arrest dis- 
obedient Cortes, and had lost an eye and suffered 
captivity for his pains. ^ Narvaez was a native of 
Valladolid, of good blood and gentle breeding. He 
had taken part in the conquest of Cuba. He is de- 
scribed as a tall man of proud mien, with a fair com- 
plexion, a red beard, and — since the encounter 
with Cortes — one eagle eye. His manner was 
diplomatic and gracious and his voice resonant, "as 
if it came from a cave." ^ He had acquired wealth 
in the New World (and a reputation for keeping his 
money) as well as sound fame as a soldier, for he 
was said to be "brave against Indians and probably 
would have been against any people, had ever 
occasion offered for fighting them."^ 

In June, 1527, Narvaez sailed from Spain with 
six hundred colonists and a number of Franciscan 

' See The Spanish Conquerors, in this Series. 
' Lowery, Spanish Settlements, p. 174. Both quotations from 
Bernal Diaz, repeated by Lowery. 



20 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

friars. Among his officers was Alvar Nunez Ca- 
beza de Vaca, of whom more anon. Narvaez's 
patent gave him the country from the Rio de las 
Palmas to the Cape of Florida, and thus made him 
heir to part of the land — as well as to the misfor- 
tunes — of Ponce de Leon. His misfortunes began 
in the West Indies. At Santo Domingo a fourth 
of his colonists deserted; and two ships which he 
had sent to Trinidad, with Cabeza de Vaca, were 
wrecked in a hurricane. The fears thus spread 
amongst his company forced him to remain at an- 
chor until the passing of winter. The spring of 
1528 saw his expedition, its personnel now reduced 
to about four hundred, on the way. Strong winds 
from the south drove his ships to the Florida coast 
and on Good Friday he landed at Tampa Bay. 
There he found a village, from which the natives 
had fled at sight of his sails. And in one of the 
deserted houses he saw a faint glint of the hope 
which kindled the heart of every explorer — a 
small golden ornament dropped in the flight. 

Before this tenantless village Narvdez unfurled 
the royal standard and recited a proclamation pre- 
pared by learned jurists of Spain wherewith to ac- 
quaint the Indians of the King's lands with their 
new estate. But the natives ignored its benign 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLL6n, NARVAEZ 21 

provisions and plain warnings. They returned next 
day and "made signs and menaces, and appeared 
to say we must go away from the country." Nar- 
vaez, however, having come as the servant of the 
Crown and to fill his own coffers, was in no mind to 
retreat. Somewhere in that wilderness there m^ust 
be gold. What was that yellow-gleaming ornament 
he had found .^^ Indeed, there was a land to the 
north, named Appalachen, teeming with gold; so 
the natives said. He decided to send the fleet up 
the coast, to find a good harbor and there await 
him. He and his officers with their wives, the 
friars, and the colonists, would press inland to seek 
Appalachen. In this decision Narvaez ignored the 
advice of Vaca, who said that they and their ships 
would never meet again, and the warnings of one 
of the women. This woman had foretold in Spain 
many of the circumstances of the voyage and now 
declared that horrible disaster would befall the in- 
land explorers ; for so had a Moorish soothsayer in 
Castile prognosticated. This sibyl and the other 
wives insisted on going with the ships. The voyage 
having begun, they immediately took to them- 
selves new husbands, knowing, by the Moor's 
prophecy, that never more should they salute their 
lawful spouses. 



22 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Narvaez's company, now reft of its women, com- 
prised three hundred men, including five priests 
and forty officers and soldiers in armor, mounted 
upon armored horses. Led by the standard-bearer, 
this shining host plunged into the Florida wilds. 
Crossing the Withlacoochee and Suwanee Rivers, 
they passed from a fairly open country into dense 
forests. Their food gave out and they nourished 
themselves and their horses as best they could on 
the shoots of young palm. Men and horses were 
exhausted from hunger and fatigue and galled 
from the heavy armor, when at last on St. John's 
Day (June 24, 1528), they reached Appalachen, 
near the present Tallahassee in northern Florida. 
But golden Appalachen proved to be only a town 
of forty clay huts, occupied then by women and 
children; for the men were away on the warpath. 
The Spaniards took possession of the town and fed 
on maize for twenty -five days, obliged occasionally 
to do battle against the returning warriors. Ex- 
cursions into the surrounding country, attended 
by skirmishes, convinced Narvaez that there was 
no great and rich city there which might answer 
to the false description given him of Appalachen. 
"Thenceforth were great lakes, dense mountains, 
immense deserts and solitudes." So Narvaez and 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 23 

his company turned south again and westward in 
the hope of finding their ships. After nine days' 
diflScult march they came upon Ante, another de- 
serted Indian village, where again they found food. 
They reached the sea at last at Appalachee Bay. 

But there was no sign of the ships. The ships, 
in fact, had sailed away to Cuba. Yet the sea was 
their only hope; so they determined to slay their 
horses for food and to build a fleet of horsehide 
boats in which to escape to Panuco (Mexico) which 
was thought to be close by. Little did they dream 
that it was over a thousand miles away. 

There was only one carpenter in the company. 
They had, says Vaca, "no tools, nor iron, nor forge, 
nor tow, nor resin, nor rigging." But necessity is 
the mother of invention, and Robinson Crusoe 
could scarcely have done better himself. Bellows 
were contrived from wooden tubes and deerskin. 
Nails, saws, and axes were made of the iron from 
the stirrups, crossbows, and spurs. Palmettos 
were used in place of tow. From the pitch of the 
pines a Greek made resin for calking, and the 
boats were covered with horsehide. Ropes and 
rigging were made from palmetto fiber and horse- 
hair, sails from the shirts of the men, and oars from 
young savins. While the boats were building four 



24 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

journeys were made to Aute for maize, and every 
third day a horse was killed for food. The skins of 
the horses' legs were removed entire, tanned, and 
used for water bottles. In the course of this work 
ten men were slain by Indians, and forty others 
died from disease and hunger. At last five boats 
were completed, each twenty-one cubits long. By 
the 22d of September the last horse was eaten, and 
on that day two hundred and forty-two men set 
sail in those five frail craft of horsehide, not one 
among them knowing how to handle a boat. In 
memory of the diet of horseflesh they named the 
harbor where they embarked the Bay of Horses. 

Rowing along the coast, occasionally passing a 
village of fishermen — "a poor miserable lot," says 
Vaca — at the end of thirty days they were de- 
tained at an island by a storm. Next day they had 
a battle with some Indians near a large inlet, per- 
haps Pensacola Bay. Three or four days farther 
west a Greek and a negro went ashore for food and 
fresh water and never returned.' Farther along 
the coast they came to the mouth of a large river, 
no doubt the Mississippi. The combined strength 
of its current and of a storm which now arose was 

' Eleven years later De Soto found the Greek's dagger in the 
possession of Indians near Mobile Bay. 



PONCE DE LEON, AYLLON, NARVAEZ 25 

so great that the flotilla was driven far out to sea, 
and the boats became separated and were never 
again all together. It is known, however, from 
Vaca's narrative that they again drew in to the 
shore. Three of them, Vaca's boat and two oth- 
ers, were wrecked, on the 6th of November, on 
an island — Galveston Island, or one near it, by 
Vaca named Malhado, or Misfortune. Another 
boat, carrying the commissary and the friars, was 
wrecked on the mainland farther west. 

One of the five boats yet remained afloat, the 
commander's own. Narvaez bore on westward, 
hugging the coast. One day he descried on land 
some of the castaways of the fourth boat which had 
been wrecked, making their way painfully on foot. 
He landed some of his own crew to lighten his boat 
and proceeded by water, while the destitute band 
with the friars marched slowly along the shore. At 
evening he hove to, after ferrying the pedestrians 
across a bay that cut off their route, and landed the 
rest of his people. Dropping a stone for anchor, 
Narvaez then prepared to spend the night in his 
boat with his page, who was dangerously ill. But 
a wild wind came down with the dark and swept 
his frail craft out upon the deep. And Narvaez 
followed Ay lion to "sepulchre in the ocean-sea." 



CHAPTER II 



CABEZA DE VACA 



Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, now a castaway 
on "Malhado" Island, on the wild coast of Texas, 
was a noble of old lineage. He had relinquished 
high official position in Spain to join Narvaez in his 
adventure. Of the disaster and its remarkable 
sequel Vaca wrote a circumstantial account which 
enables us to get his story at first hand. On the 
island Vaca took command of his comrades in ad- 
versity. His first need was to learn if the country 
was inhabited. So he ordered Lope de Oviedo, who 
had "more strength and was stouter than any of 
the rest," to climb a tree to spy out the land. Ovi- 
edo discovered Indians and brought them to where 
the Spaniards lay shivering and exhausted on the 
beach, some of them too frail to crawl among the 
rocks for shelter from the biting winds. The casta- 
ways must have looked forlorn, indeed; for Vaca, 
who had a nice literary touch, says that their 

26 



CABEZA DE VACA 27 

bodies had "become the perfect figures of death"; 
and that the Indians *'at sight of what had befallen 
us, and our state of suffering and melancholy desti- 
tution . . . began to lament so earnestly that they 
might have been heard at a distance and continued 
so doing more than half an hour." Even in his 
weakness and misery, for Vaca was in a worse con- 
dition than many of his companions, his imagina- 
tion was caught by the strange scene those savages 
"wild and untaught" presented as they sat among 
the white men "howling like brutes over our 
misfortunes." "]( Vaca besought the Indians to take 
the Spaniards to their dwellings. Thirty savages 
loaded themselves with driftwood and immediate- 
ly set off at a run for their camp some distance 
away. The other Indians, holding up the emaci- 
ated white men so that their feet barely touched 
the ground, followed in short swift marches, paus- 
ing occasionally to warm the Spaniards at great 
fires built by the thirty wood carriers at intervals 
along the trail. In the village they lodged their 
guests in huts where they had also built fires, fed 
them with roasted fish and roots, and sang and 
danced and wept about them until far into the 
night. In the morning they brought more cooked 
fish and in all ways showed much hospitality. 



28 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

The very next day, much to his delight, Vaca 
learned that other white men were on the same 
island. A messenger being sent out, soon Vaca was 
joined at the village by some of his former com- 
panions, Dorantes, Castillo, and their men, who 
had been wrecked on the island the day before Vaca 
landed there. Three of the castaways, numbering 
at this time about eighty, had been drowned in an 
ineffectual attempt to recover one of the horsehide 
boats. Terrible as the sea had been to them, they 
would have dared its storms once more in the des- 
perate hope of coming at last somewhere into a 
Spanish harbor. 

As December waned, bitter cold and heavy 
storms descended on this coast, stopped the fish 
supply, and prevented the Indians from digging for 
the edible roots which grew under water. Starva- 
tion and exposure thinned the ranks of the Span- 
iards. The survivors, to the horror of the Indians, 
ate the flesh of their own dead. When spring came, 
Vaca had with him but fifteen men. 
-^ A new danger now assailed them. Disease at- 
tacked the Indians and destroyed half their num- 
ber. In their panic the natives accused the Span- 
iards of having brought the plague upon them by 
occult means; and they were only prevented from 



CABEZA DE VACA 29 

slaying them by the chief who had taken Vaca in 
charge.N^ If, argued this worthy, the white men 
could bring the disease upon the Indians, they 
could also surely have prevented their own people 
from dying. And "God our Lord willed that the 
others should heed this opinion and counsel, and be 
hindered in their design." So the Indians did not 
kill the Spaniards. But the notion that their mys- 
terious refugees possessed supernatural powers was 
too pleasant to be given up. Now let those powers 
be used to cure sick Indians and banish the plague. 
As Vaca puts it, with his occasional sly touch of hu- 
mor, "they wished to make us physicians, without 
examination or inquiring for diplomas."^* In vain 
he tried to laugh the savages out of their conviction. 
They replied that when stones and "other matters 
growing about the fields have virtue" then cer- 
tainly "extraordinary men" must be more highly 
endowed. And if those extraordinary men would 
not heal, neither should they eat. This was cogent 
reasoning. After hungering for several days Vaca 
took the first step towards the remarkable career he 
was to follow later on as a Medicine Man. He had 
observed the Indian witch-doctors blowing upon 
their patients and passing their hands over them, 
frequently with successful results. Y^And, devoutly 



30 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

religious as he was, he knew that in his homeland 
the "prayer of faith" uttered by humble petition- 
ers before the wayside shrines frequently wrought 
the recovery of the sick. Therefore, he seems to 
have reasoned, a blend of Indian and Christian 
faiths should be efficacious here. He says: 

Our method was to bless the sick, breathing upon them 
and recite a Pater-noster and an Ave Maria, praying 
with all earnestness to God our Lord that he would 
give health and influence them to make us some good 
return. In His clemency He willed that all those for 
whom we supplicated should tell the others that they 
were sound and in health, directly after we made the 
sign of the blessed cross over them. For this the In- 
dians treated us kindly; they deprived themselves of 
food that they might 1^1 ve to us, and presented us with 
skins and some trifles. 

Scarcity of food contirkied so that sometimes In- 
dians and white men went without eating for sev- 
eral days at a time. Presently an Indian guide, 
who had been bribed by a marten skin, departed 
westward along the mainland coast, taking with 
him all the Spaniards but three, Vaca, Oviedo, and 
Alaniz, who were too frail for travel. In the sum- 
mer Vaca went with the Indians to the mainland 
foraging for food. The life he led was "insupport- 
able," being practically that of a slave. One of his 



CABEZA DE VACA 31 

duties was to dig out the edible roots from below 
the water and from among the cane. His fingers 
were so worn from this labor that "did a straw 
but touch them they would bleed"; and the sharp 
spikes of broken cane tore his naked flesh. 
4- For nearly six years Vaca lived a slave among 
these Indians. He had long intended to escape and 
to set off westward "in quest of Christians"; for, 
somewhere towards the sunset, lay Panuco, and, 
given bodily strength, a brave heart, and faith in 
God, a man might hope to reach it. But Vaca 
would not leave his two companions. Then Alaniz 
died; and Oviedo, however much "stouter" than 
the other Spaniards in the matter of climbing trees, 
was not of stout courage. He feared to be left 
behind and he would not go. Every winter Vaca 
returned to the island and entreated him to pluck 
up heart; and every spring Oviedo put him off, but 
promised that next year he would set out. 

Vaca did not let time pass unimproved. To get 
rid of root-digging and sore fingers, he decided to 
enter the domain of commerce. He could begin 
with good prospects because the Indians of the 
mainland had already heard flattering reports of 
his skill as a Medicine Man. And perhaps he ex- 
pected to fit himself for the journey down the coast 



32 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

by acquiring a number of Indian dialects, by be- 
coming a connoisseur of Indian staples and trin- 
kets, and by learning from western tribes on their 
summer buffalo hunts in Texas some details of the 
country through which he must pass on his pro- 
jected journey to Panuco. Ordinary perils and 
hardships had lost their terrors for Vaca. Roving 
naked and barefooted like the tribesmen, his body 
had become inured to fatigues and to wind and 
weather; periods of famine had also prepared this 
erstwhile son of magnificence and luxury to cope 
with the barren wilderness when the day of escape 
he had waited for should come at last.f He had 
learned to make the Indians' weapons and to use 
them in hunting, though, as he admits, he never 
developed the Indian's subtlety in trailing, if He 
was so satisfactory as a servant, indeed, that his 
masters were content to have him do their trading 
for them ; and they let him come and go at will. Of 
his career as a merchant in Texas, Vaca gives a 
lengthy account, interesting because it is the first 
record of trade in this now great commercial land. 

I set to trafficking, and strove to make my employ- 
ment profitable in the ways I could best contrive, and 
by that means I got food and good treatment. The In- 
dians would beg me to go from one quarter to another 



CABEZA DE VACA 33 

for things of which they have need; for in conse- 
quence of incessant hostihties, they cannot traverse 
the country, nor make many exchanges. With my 
merchandise and trade I went into the interior as far 
as I pleased, and travelled along the coast forty or fifty 
leagues.y The principal wares were cones and other 
pieces of sea-snail, conchs used for cutting, and fruit 
like a bean of the highest value among them, which 
they use as a medicine and employ in their dances and 
festivities. . . , Such were what I carried into the 
interior; and in barter I got and brought back skins, 
ochre with which they rub and color the face, hard 
canes of which to make arrows, sinews, cement and 
flint for the heads, and tassels of the hair of deer that 
by dyeing they make red. This occupation suited me 
well; for the travel allowed me liberty to go where I 
wished, I was not obliged to work, and was not a slave. 

Evidently he made an enviable name for himself 
among the savages as a merchant of their primitive 
commerce for, wherever he went, he received fair 
treatment and generous hospitality "out of regard 
to my commodities"; and those Indians with whom 
he had not traded, hearing of him, "sought and 
desired the acquaintance for my reputation." He 
traveled far afield in pursuit of his "leading object 
while journeying in this business," which was to 
find the best way to go forward. "The hardships 
that I underwent in this were long to tell, as well of 
peril and privation as of storms and cold," he 



34 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

writes: "Oftentimes they overtook me alone and 
in the wilderness; but I came forth from them all 
by the great mercy of God our Lord." 

Three times Vaca saw "cattle" and tasted their 
meat. And he has contributed to historical narra- 
tive the first description of the American buffalo : 

I think they are about the size of those in Spain. They 
have small horns like the cows of Morocco; the hair is 
very long and flocky like the merinos. Some are 
tawny, others black. To my judgment the flesh is 
finer and fatter than that of this country [Spain]. Of 
the skins of those not full grown the Indians make 
blankets, and of the larger they make shoes [mocca- 
sins] and bucklers. They come as far as the sea- 
coast of Florida, from a northerly direction, ranging 
through a tract of more than four hundred leagues; 
and throughout the whole region over which they 
run, the people who inhabit near, descend and live 
upon them, distributing a vast many hides into the 
interior country. 

From these travels Vaca returned each year to 
the island to see how Oviedo fared and to urge him 
again to dare the wilderness with him. History 
gives us few instances of greater loyalty than 
Vaca's. It was not in him to deal with comrades 
as Narvdez had dealt with his followers after leav- 
ing the Bay of Horses, saying that "each should do 



CABEZA DE VACA 35 

what he thought best to save his own life; that he 
so intended to act." At last Vaca overcame Ovi- 
edo's timidity and the two men set forth. Perhaps 
Vaca swam to the mainland with Oviedo on his 
back, or towed him over on a piece of driftwood; 
for he says, "I got him off, crossing him over the 
bay, and over four rivers in the coast, as he could 
not swim." The two men were naked, armed only 
with bows and arrows and conch-shell knives, and 
Vaca carried his trader's pack of shell trinkets. 
After crossing the fourth river they went to the sea 
at Matagorda Bay, where they met with a tribe 
whom Vaca calls the Quevenes. These Indians 
told him that they had seen men like himself in the 
custody of another tribe farther down the coast. 
Vaca knew that the men must be his old compan- 
ions, who had left the island four years previously; 
and he resolved at once to seek them and with them 
to escape. But this new peril in prospect, added 
to the rough manner of the Quevenes, was too 
much for the timid soul of Oviedo. And, deaf to 
all Vaca's imploring, he turned back toward the 
island — and out of history — leaving the man 
who had stood by him so faithfully to pursue 
his dangerous way alone. Who knows but that 
some giant Karankawa chief, of those who in the 



36 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

nineteenth century pestered Austin's colonists in 
Texas, was a descendant of this Oviedo? 

The Quevenes intended to hold Vaca as a slave; 
but he slipped away and stole out along the river 
bank — the Colorado, it seems — where, as he had 
heard, the Indians who had white men with them 
were gathering pecans for their winter's food store. 
Here he found Dorantes and Castillo and a Chris- 
tianized Moor named Estevanico. These three 
were all that now remained of the twelve who had 
left the island; some had been lost in the wilds, 
others drowned in an attempted escape, and five 
the Indians had killed "for their diversions." Says 
the devout Vaca: "We gave many thanks at see- 
ing ourselves together, and this was a day to us of 
the greatest pleasure we had enjoyed in life. . . . 
Thus the Almighty had been pleased to preserve 
me . . . that I might lead them over the bays 
and rivers that obstructed our progress." 

Dorantes told Yaca. the melancholy history of 
Narvaez's end. He had heard it from a captive in 
another tribe who was presumably the sole sur- 
vivor; and he had learned later that this survivor 
had been slain because a native woman had 
dreamed he was about to kill her son. Of those 
three hundred- adventurers who had landed with 



CABEZA DE VACA 37 

Narvdez on the west coast of Florida, some the sea 
had swallowed up, others had fallen prey to bitter 
weather, disease, cannibalism, Indian "diversion," 
and superstition; and now but three Spaniards and 
the Moor Estevanico were left alive, and these 
were naked, destitute, the slaves of a fierce and 
savage tribe. Vaca, on his appearance among the 
two tribes at the pecan gathering, had been seized 
as a slave by the cross-eyed master of Dorantes. 
This was a contingency he had been prepared to 
face. It was in the knowledge that the effort to es- 
cape might mean enslavement, or even death, that 
Oviedo had turned back — and Vaca gone on. 

Secretly the captives laid plans for their escape, 
which they would postpone, however, until the 
summer, when their masters would go westward to 
gather prickly pears. Then "people would arrive 
from parts farther on, bringing bows to barter and 
for exchange, with whom, after making our escape, 
we should be able to go on their return." 

Summer came. On the prickly pear plains, 
somewhere west of the Colorado, the captives had 
made all ready for escape when their plan was 
balked by an Indian quarrel. One of the factions 
departed at once, taking Castillo with them. So 
the Spaniards were again separated; and again 



38 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Vaca postponed his journey for another year. Next 
summer the Indians would return to the prickly 
pear plains and, if Castillo were still alive, then he 
should find that his comrades had not abandoned 
him. That Vaca himself and the two with him 
might be done away with for Indian "diversion," 
or by the blasts and want of another winter, was 
also a probability. But Vaca seems to have 
brooded little over his own dangers. His actions 
prove his words that he ever had trust that God 
would lead him "out from that captivity, and thus 
I always spoke of it to my companions." 

Another year was passed in slavery, during 
which time Vaca led a pitifully hard life. Three 
times he ran away, so badly was he used, but each 
time he was pursued and taken back. In Septem- 
ber of the following year — it was now 1534 — a 
third time the Spaniards met on the prickly pear 
plains. Escaping at last they fled west to the Ava- 
vares, whom Vaca had met farther east when a 
trader. At this village there was a sick native in 
one of the tents, and his tribesmen demanded that 
Vaca cure him. He restored the patient to health 
and was rewarded with a supply of meat and fruit. 
As the Indians told him that the country to the 
westward was cold and predicted from certain 



CABEZA DE VACA 39 

natural signs a severe winter, he counseled patience 
once more. 

For eight months the white men continued with 
the Avavares, and the fame of the new Medicine 
Man was on every tongue. His companions were 
also called to the sick bed, since they might be sup- 
posed to partake of his talents. But it seems that 
neither Castillo nor Dorantes relished the role of 
physician. Castillo, indeed, went about his new 
occupation with shaking loiees. He much doubted 
the approval of high heaven and feared, moreover, 
that his sins would weigh against his healing efforts. 
Vaca's sturdy soul knew no misgivings. He did not 
believe that he was dowered with mystic powers; 
yet he saw the sick rise up after he had blown upon 
them in the native fashion and made the sign of the 
cross over them in Christian manner. This was, 
to him, proof positive that God willed the preser- 
vation of himself and his friends and blessed his 
efforts accordingly. 

: When summer came (1535) the four Spaniards, 
turning southward, passed on to the Arbadaos. 
These Indians evidently lived in the great sand 
belt between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. 
They were kind, but food was scarce in their desert 
land, and while with them the Spaniards suffered 



40 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

more than ever the pangs of hunger. "In the course 
of a whole day we did not eat more than two 
handfuls of fruit, which was green and contained 
so much milky juice that our mouths were burnt 
by it." In their straits they were helped out by 
the purchase of two dogs, for which Vaca gave 
the skins which covered his nakedness. He made 
combs, bows and arrows, nets, and the mats which 
formed the walls of the savages' temporary dwell- 
ings, and traded these for whatever increase of food 
he could get and occasionally for skins. Sometimes 
he was set to scraping and softening hides, and he 
says that the days of his "greatest prosperity" were 
those when he was given skins to dress, for "I 
would scrape them a very great deal and eat the 
scraps, which would sustain me for two or three 
days." Sometimes a piece of meat was thrown to 
the fugitives and they ate it raw; for, if they had 
put it to roast, the first native happening along 
would have snatched it and devoured it. Vaca re- 
marks slyly that "it appeared to us not well to 
expose it to this risk." 

Having consumed the dogs, the Spaniards con- 
tinued their journey southward, and soon crossed a 
river which appeared to them to be as wide as the 
Guadalquivir at Seville. It was the Rio Grande. 



CABEZA DE VACA 41 

By this time the Miracle Man's fame had spread 
from tribe to tribe along his route. And his prog- 
ress now became a triumphal march, with flocks 
of feathered Indians — sometimes to the number 
of four thousand — following in his train. His red- 
skinned disciples greatly impeded his travel, for 
they all wished to touch him and his friends or 
some part of their clothing; and not a man of the 
thousands of them would eat a morsel of food until 
one of the Spaniards had blessed it. At the same 
time they hunted and dug for food along the march, 
killing hares, deer, opossums, gathering fruit, roots, 
and nuts. They never presumed to eat until they 
had fed their physician; nor to rest until they had 
erected houses for him and his three friends. Their 
women wove mats and blankets for the white men 
and made their moccasins. The natives from one 
village would go as far as the next; there they 
would proclaim to the astonished inhabitants Va- 
ca's wondrous works, and, at the same time, plun- 
der the village of everything worth taking. Vaca 
was grieved at this wholesale robbery but dared 
not attempt to check it. " In consolation," he says, 
"the plunderers told them that we were children of 
the sun and that we had power to heal the sick and 
to destroy; and other lies even greater than these. 



42 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

which none know how to tell better than they when 
they find it convenient. They bade them conduct 
us with great respect, advised that they should be 
careful to offend us in nothing, give us all they 
might possess, and endeavor to take us where 
people were numerous; and that wheresoever they 
arrive with us, they should rob and pillage the peo- 
ple of what they have, since this was customary." 
The coast Indians had been hostile, but these 
were friendly, so the direct route to Panuco was 
abandoned. Turning westward now through Coa- 
huila, and then northward, Vaca recrossed the Rio 
Grande west of the Pecos, struck it again at the 
mouth of the Conchos, and followed it to the Vicin- 
ity of El Paso. And over all these leagues of wilder- 
ness the hordes of Indians continued with him. In 
one town Vaca performed a surgical operation with 
a conch-shell knife, cutting a flint arrowhead from 
a man's shoulder. The patient recovered; and the 
arrowhead was carried like a saint's relic, through- 
out the land, that men might marvel. From the 
region of El Paso, Vaca and his friends pressed 
westward over the arid plains of Chihuahua and 
crossed the Sierra Madre Mountains after many 
days of hard going. "The Indians," says Vaca, 
"ever accompanied us until they delivered us to 



CABEZA DE VACA 4& 

others; and all held full faith in our coming from 
heaven. . . . Thus we . . . traversed all the 
country until coming out at the South Sea." 
^ At a town on the Rio Yaqui the Spaniards were 
presented with over six hundred "hearts of deer," 
and five arrows tipped with "emeralds" — prob- 
ably malachite. This Town of the Hearts, as Vaca 
named it, was in the region of Sahuaripa, Sonora. 
Descending the Yaqui River, which empties into 
the Gulf of California,! Vaca came upon Spaniards 
on a slave-hunting foray on the frontier of New 
Galicia.X^The surprise occasioned by the apparition 
there of these four haggard, battered, bearded, 
skin-clothed, paint-bedaubed Europeans can be 
better imagined than described. Glad indeed were 
the poor wanderers to see once again men of their 
own race, and they "gave many thanks to God 
our Lord.^ 

But Vaca's feeling was not one of unmixed joy, 
for on every side he saw the devastation the Span- 
iards had wrought among the natives ; half the men 
and all the women and boys, he says, had been car- 
ried away as slaves. The six hundred natives who 
had accompanied Vaca down the Yaqui offered a 
rich and easy prize to these slave hunters; and 
*^ Vaca's urgent protests resulted only in deceitful 



44 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

promises. He says, **We set about to preserve 
the liberty of the Indians and thought we had se- 
cured it, but the contrary appeared; for the Chris- 
tians had arranged to go and spring upon those 
we had sent away in peace and confidence. They 
executed their plans as they had designed./' 

Vaca and his comrades went on southward, 
through Culiacan to Compostela, then the princi- 
pal town of New Galicia. Here they were hospit- 
ably received by Nufio de Guzman, the Governor, 
who gave them beds, and some of his own ward- 
robe to screen their nakedness. But after eight 
years of Indian life the wanderers found that they 
could not wear clothes with comfort, "nor could 
we sleep anywhere else but on the ground.'* 

Vaca reached the City of Mexico on July 24, 
1536; thence he went to Santo Domingo, and from 
there to Spain. In all places his story bore fruit. 
In Spain he was disappointed in his ambition for 
the governorship of Florida. One wonders why he 
should have wanted it! That office had already 
been taken by Hernando de Soto. Vaca was in- 
vited to accompany De Soto, but his experience 
with Narvaez had made him unwilling to take part 
in an expedition not commanded by himself. After 
three years of hopes and disappointments, Vaca 



CABEZA DE VACA 45 

was made adelantado of Rio de la Plata, in South 
America. In this venture he expended all his 
means. In the South American wilds he made 
marches almost as heroic as his journey from Texas 
to Sonora. But his humane treatment of the na- 
tives won for him the hostility of his turbulent com- 
patriots. He was seized, on trumped-up charges, 
and sent in chains to Spain. There he lay in prison 
for six years. He was then condemned by the 
Council of the Indies, stripped of his honors and 
titles, and sentenced to exile in Africa. Meanwhile 
he had become the subject of a learned controversy 
among clerical pamphleteers as to the propriety of 
a layman's performing miracles. His end is not 
known, though he is said to have been living in 
Spain twenty years laterXOf his companions only 
the black Estevanico played a conspicuous part 
in later history in America. We shall hear anon 
how Estevanico became a permanent figure in 
Indian tradition. 



CHAPTER III 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 



Hernando de Soto was about thirty-six years of 
age when he was appointed adelantado of Florida. 
He was "a gentleman by all four descents," and 
had recently been created by the Emperor a knight 
of the order of Santiago. He had already led a 
career of adventure not often equaled. He had 
served under Pedrarias in Nicaragua, and, by his 
marriage to Pedrarias's daughter. Dona Isabel, had 
become brother-in-law to Balboa, discoverer of the 
Pacific. Later, in following the fortunes of Pizarro 
in Peru, he had "distinguished himself over all the 
captains and principal personages present, not only 
at the seizure of Atabalipa [Atahualpa, the Inca], 
lord of Peru, and in carrying the City of Cuzco, but 
at all other places wheresoever he went and found 
resistance." Thus does the Gentleman of Elvas, 
comrade of Don Hernando and narrator of his ex- 
ploits, pen his biography in a line. A man of blood 

46 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 47 

and iron, wherever he "found resistance" there Her- 
nando de Soto was roused to action. He brooked 
neither opposition from foes nor interference from 
friends; and, for him, no peril, no hardship, could 
surpass in bitterness the defeat of his will. His 
nature was to be read plainly in his swarthy, 
strongly lined face and burning black eyes, and in 
the proud carriage of his head; so that, though he 
was hardly more than of medium stature, men re- 
marked him and gave him room. He had an agree- 
able smile at rare moments; he was renowned for 
courage, and his skill as a horseman was noted 
among those lovers of horses, the Spanish no- 
bles. He was able to set up a fine establishment 
and to lend money to the Emperor Charles V, 
from whom he was seeking high office. And so the 
Emperor made him Governor of Cuba and adelan- 
tado of Florida. Narvaez had pictured in Florida 
another Mexico. De Soto hoped to find there 
another Peru. 

The news of De Soto's expedition took his 
countrymen by storm. When Vaca, fresh from 
his wanderings, appeared at court and told his 
great tale, the enthusiasm increased. Rich nobles 
sold their estates, their houses, vineyards, and 
olive-fields, their plate and jewels, their towns of 



48 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

vassals, to participate in the venture. There as- 
sembled in Seville so many "persons of noble ex- 
traction" that a large number of those who had 
sold all they had were forced to remain behind for 
want of shipping. De Soto mustered his volunteers 
for review at the port of Sanlucar. Here he 
scanned them carefully and picked out his men, 
who were then counted and enlisted. They num- 
bered six hundred. And, considering the small size 
of the ships of that day, they and their supplies 
must have been tightly packed in the nine vessels 
that bore them from Spain. 

On Sunday morning of the day of St. Lazarus, 
April, 1538, Hernando de Soto in a "new ship 
fast of sail "led his fleet over the bar of Sanlucar, 
"with great festivity." From every vessel artillery 
roared at his command, and trumpets sounded. 
Favorable winds urged his vessels on; his adored 
Dona Isabel was beside him, adventure and fame 
were before him. 

On Pentecost Day the ships were moored in the 
harbor of Santiago de Cuba. All the horsemen and 
footmen of the town surged down to the landing; 
and Don Hernando and Dofia Isabel, followed by 
their train of six hundred, rode into the city, where 
they were "well lodged, attentively visited, and 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 49 

served by all the citizens." From Santiago Don 
Hernando sent Dona Isabel and the ships to Ha- 
vana, his port of embarkment for Florida; while 
with one hundred and fifty horsemen he made a 
tour of the cities under his authority. Presently 
he heard that his ships bound for Havana had ex- 
perienced severe storms, which had swept them out 
of their course and separated them. But after 
forty days they had all come safely to Havana. 
Leaving his cavalcade to follow as it might, Don 
Hernando mounted and made all speed to Havana 
and Dona Isabel. 

On Sunday, May 18, 1539, De Soto said farewell 
to his wife and sailed from Havana for Florida, the 
land still reputed to be "the richest of any which 
until then had been discovered"; and on the thir- 
tieth he landed his men near an Indian town on 
Tampa Bay. Here the Spaniards immediately had 
a brush with the natives, who let drive at the ar- 
mored horsemen with their arrows. Two savages 
were Idlled; the others fled through wooded and 
boggy country where the horses could not follow. 
And, when the Spaniards lay in camp that night 
they could see flames come out against the black- 
ness, dwindhng in the distance to specks like fire- 
flies, as the Indians passed their fiery warning 



50 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

inland. Two days later they came upon a deserted 
town of eight huts. De Soto established head- 
quarters there and sent out several companies of 
horse and foot to explore. He ordered the woods 
felled "the distance of a crossbow shot" around the 
town. He set sentinels about the place and de- 
tailed horsemen to go the rounds. After having 
made all secure, he lodged himself in the chief's 
house. And there, in the dust flooring, under his 
torch's glare, he found a small scatter of pearls. 
They were ruined by the fire used in boring them 
for beads; but to him they were typical of the 
jewelled chain of fortune which should link him 
with greatness to his life's end and as long after 
as men's tongues should wag. So had Narvaez 
thought when he found the golden ornament. 

When the exploring parties returned they could 
relate that the Indians of Florida were no mean 
foes. One party brought back six men wounded — 
one so badly that he died. But they had captured 
four women. Another party brought in a man — 
a white man. This was Juan Ortiz, of noble lin- 
eage, follower of the fortunes of Narvaez, and for 
the last eleven years a slave among the savages. 
He had entered Florida with Narvaez, but instead 
of following his leader inland, had stuck to the ships 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 51 

and had returned to Cuba. Then Narvaez's wife 
had sent him back to Florida in a pinnace to look 
for her husband, and there he had been taken 
captive. An Indian girl, he said — apparently a 
prototype of Pocahontas — had romantically saved 
his life, just as he was about to be roasted alive at 
the command of her father. In passing from tribe 
to tribe, sometimes in barter, sometimes as a fugi- 
tive, Ortiz had become conversp.nt with several dia- 
lects and he could now play the role of interpreter. 
To De Soto's eager inquiries he answered that he 
had seen no gold nor jewels, but had heard of a rich 
country thirty leagues inland. This was enough. 
De Soto now dispatched his ships to Cuba for more 
supplies and ordered his company to make ready 
to march. 

This was the beginning of three years of restless 
wandering, in the course of which De Soto and his 
men traversed Florida, Georgia, Carolina, Ten- 
nessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, 
Louisiana, and Texas. 

Leaving at the camp a garrison of fifty footmen 
with thirty horses and food for two years, on Au- 
gust 1, 1539, De Soto set out. In his train were some 
five hundred and fifty lancers, crossbowmen, and 
arquebusiers, about two hundred horses, a number 



52 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

of priests and Dominican friars — with the sacred 
vessels, vestments, and white meal for the Mass; a 
physician and his medicines; a ship's carpenter, 
calkers, and a cooper for the boat-building that 
might be necessary on inland waters — perhaps to 
construct a ship to bear Don Hernando to China 
by that fabled waterway Columbus had not found. 
And there were armorers and smiths, with their 
forges and tools, for mail shirts must be mended be- 
times, swords tempered, and the great bulk of iron 
chains and iron slave-collars kept in good repair. 

They were bound northwestward to the country 
of Cale. Indians had told them that beyond Cale, 
*' towards the sunset," lay a land of perpetual sum- 
mer where there was so much gold that, when its 
people came down to war with the tribes of Cale, 
"they wore golden hats like casques." 
4 On towards that land of golden hats went the 
Spaniards; over low thicketed country full of bogs 
and swamps, where the horses, weighted by their 
own armor and their heavily accoutered riders, 
mired and floundered. They crossed several small 
rivers on logs, swimming the horses over by a haw- 
ser. This was not the country, "very rich in 
maize," which Indians had told them stretched 
along the way to Cale. Pinched by hunger, the 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 53 

Spaniards ate young palm shoots and water cresses 
"without other thing." And, from the thickets 
about the bogs and marshes, invisible savages sent 
a rain of arrows upon them. 

"He came to Cale and found the town aban- 
doned," tersely writes the Gentleman of Elvas. 
Cale was a huddle of mud and palmetto huts some- 
where on the Suwanee River. But there was ripe 
maize in the Indian fields, enough to supply De 
Soto's men for three months; three men were killed 
during the husking. The Indians kept under cover, 
and no slaves could be taken; so the Spaniards were 
forced to grind their own corn for bread. Some of 
them ground it in the log mortars they found in the 
town and sifted the flour through their mail shirts. 
The majority, disdaining this menial toil, ate the 
grains "parched and sodden." 

No golden hats were found in Cale, so De Soto 
pushed on northwestward to Caliquen. Along his 
route he set a companj^ of his horsemen and a pack 
of greyhounds sharply to work catching Indians. 
For an army in a strange land needed guides; and 
gentlemen unskilled in bread-making needed slaves. 
Like Cortes he made a practice of seizing the chief 
of each town on his march — after an exchange of 
compliments and fraternal testimonials. Then he 



54 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

held him to insure the tribe's peaceful conduct; 
and forced him to supply food and men and women 
for the use of the army. 

De Soto's first pitched battle with the Indians 
resulted from an attempt made by the natives of 
Caliquen to rescue their chief. Ortiz, who knew 
their language, informed him of the plot. Four 
hundred natives stationed themselves outside the 
camp and sent two of their number to demand their 
chief's release. De Soto took the chief by the hand 
and led him out, accompanied by a dozen foot 
soldiers; and then, having thrown the Indians off 
guard by this strategy, he ordered the trumpet 
sounded. Shouting their battle cry of "Santiago" 
the Spaniards bore down upon the Indians, and, 
after a brief fierce fight, routed them and killed 
from thirty to forty, while the rest leaped into two 
nearby lakes to escape the horsemen's lances. The 
Spaniards surrounded one of the lakes; and during 
the night some, more alert-eyed than others, ob- 
served the odd phenomenon of water-lilies slowly 
moving inshore over the moonlit surface of the 
water. The Indians had put the lilies on their 
heads and were swimming noiselessly and with 
barely a ripple towards land. The Spaniards 
rushed in, to their horses' breasts, and drove them 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 55 

back. The next day all but a few were captured 
and divided among the Spaniards as slaves. The 
forges were in full blast that day for the riveting of 
chains and iron collars. 

But, though chained, the natives of Caliquen were 
not tamed. They rose against their captors, seized 
their weapons, and, whether lances or swords, 
handled them as if accustomed to use them all their 
lives; so says the Gentleman of Elvas, who took 
part in the melee. *'One Indian, in the public 
yard of the town, with blade in hand, fought like 
a bull in the arena, until the halberdiers of the 
Governor, arriving, put an end to him." 

A further march of about thirty miles brought 
the Spaniards to a town of the Appalachees near 
Tallahassee, probably the same visited by Narvaez. 
There they found the October fields of grain, beans, 
and pumpkins ready to harvest, and decided to go 
into camp for the winter. From this point De Soto 
dispatched communications to his ships at Tampa 
and sent letters, with a present of twenty Indian 
women captives, to be carried to Dona Isabel in 
Cuba. The army remained in camp till March. 

Besides the men sent to the ships at Tampa Bay 

— who were to bring back the garrison left there 

— De Soto sent out two exploring parties. One 



56 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

of these parties discovered Pensacola Bay. The 
other came suddenly upon a beautiful bay at no 
great distance from the camp. Its blue waves, with 
the amethystine streak characteristic of Southern 
waters, were vivid under the sun, which smote to 
gHstening scattered white objects Hke Httle heaps 
of pearl along its shore. This bay was the Bay 
of Horses, whence Narvaez and his men had set 
out in their horsehide boats. The glistening white 
heaps were the bleached bones and skulls of their 
slain mounts. 

Besought by his men "to leave the land of Flor- 
ida," lest they all perish like Narvaez, De Soto 
sternly replied that he would never turn back. In 
his heart he had already resolved to go on until he 
should find the golden country he sought; or, fail- 
ing in that search, to perish rather than return 
to bear the chagrin of seeing himself outdone by 
some other conquistador who, by greater perse- 
verance, might discover "another Mexico" in the 
great interior. 

So, on March 3, 1540, De Soto broke camp and 
took his way northeastward, across the present 
State of Georgia, through the country of the Creeks. 
Towards the end of April he reached a town called 
Cufitachiqui. It was on the Savannah River, 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 57 

probably somewhere below Augusta; Indian tradi- 
tion locates it at the modern Silver Bluff. The ca- 
cica, or chief tainess, richly draped in furs and feath- 
ers, with loops of pearls depending from her neck, 
crossed the river in a canoe to greet Don Hernando, 
accompanied by her men of state and followed by 
a fleet of canoes laden with gifts for the visiting 
prince. After speeches of welcome, she took off a 
large string of pearls and threw it about De Soto's 
neck. Then she offered more canoes brought to 
convey him and his men to the other side. Seeing 
that the pearls rejoiced him, she told him that if he 
would open the burial mounds he would find many 
more and that, in some deserted towns nearby, 
"he might load all his horses with them." So 
from the graves at Cufitachiqui De Soto took three 
hundred and fifty pounds of pearls "and figures of 
babies and birds made of them." He found also a 
dirk and some rosaries that had once belonged 
to Ayllon's followers. 

At Cufitachiqui De Soto's men desired to make 
a settlement. It was a favorable point to begin 
colonization. It lay but two days' journey from the 
sea "to which could come all the ships from New 
Spain"; and it was "a good country, and one fit 
in which to raise supplies." But De Soto was 



58 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

looking for another treasure such as he had wrested 
from the Inca in Peru and he "would not be con- 
tent with good lands nor pearls," saying that 
"should a richer country not be found, they could 
always return to that who would." He then asked 
the cacica if there were "any great lord farther on" 
and was blandly told of the rich province of Chiaha, 
subject to a chief of Coosa. To seek this new goal 
he resolved to go at once, and "being an inflexible 
man, and dry of word, who, although he liked to 
know what the others all thought and had to say, 
after he once said a thing he did not like to be op- 
posed, and as he ever acted as he thought best, all 
bent to his will . . . there were none who would 
say a thing to him after it became known that he 
had made up his mind." It was discovered pres- 
ently that this red-skinned Cleopatra now wished 
to slip away from her Antony, and without giv- 
ing him carriers for his supplies, "because of the 
outrages committed upon the inhabitants." So 
De Soto put her under guard and carried her away 
on foot with her female slaves. This treatment, 
as the Gentleman of Elvas remarks, "was not a 
proper return" for the hospitality and affectionate 
welcome he had received. 

Seven days' marching brought the Spaniards 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 59 

into the country of the Cherokees; and five days 
later they reached Xualla, a Cherokee town above 
the junction of the Tuckaseegee and Oconna-Luf- 
tee rivers in Swain County, North CaroHna. On 
the way the cacica of Cufitachiqui had escaped; 
and — more untimely loss — had carried into the 
thickets with her "a cane box, like a trunk," full of 
unbored pearls. "And the Governor, not to give 
offense, permitted it so, thinking that in Guaxulle 
he would beg them of her when he should give her 
leave to depart." Still pushing on towards that 
"richest province," De Soto crossed the Smoky 
Mountains and went into Tennessee. He tarried 
at Guaxule, where the chief's house stood on a 
great mound, surrounded by a terrace on which 
half a dozen men could walk abreast. Here he 
was fortunate enough to get three hundred "dogs" 
— perhaps opossums — as meat for his army. But 
this hilly country was unprofitable to man and 
beast. De Soto therefore turned south into Geor- 
gia, to see that "greatest prince" of Coosa. There 
was no lack of food as he pressed on southward; for 
the natives willingly contributed mulberries, nuts, 
maize, and wild turkeys. 

De Soto's course took him down the Coosa 
River to Chiaha, a town of the Creeks. Coosa, 



60 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

in Talladega County, Alabama, where men and 
beasts waxed fat on the abundance of the land, was 
reached on the 26th of July. Remembrance of 
Coosa lingered with these Spaniards and lured 
some of them back in after years. The chief of 
Coosa, arrayed in a wonderful shawl of marten 
skins — in mid-July, and in Alabama ! — and pre- 
ceded by men playing upon small flutes, came out 
to meet De Soto and invited him to settle in his 
country. But De Soto was not interested in furs, 
and he saw no gold in Coosa. So, after having 
seized a number of slaves and the chief himself, he 
went on, southward now, through Alabama. Near 
the Alabama River he was shown another gloomy 
memento of Spanish adventurers in that land. This 
was the dagger of Theodoro, the Greek, who had 
come ashore at the river's mouth to get fresh water 
for Narvaez's men some eleven years before. 

On the 15th of October, having crossed the Ala- 
bama, De Soto reached Ma villa, a large town near 
the present Choctaw Bluff. The name Mavilla is 
preserved in that of Mobile, city and river. At 
Mavilla was fought the fiercest combat of the en- 
tire march. The Indians soon set upon the Span- 
iards and drove them outside the walls of the town. 
They seized all the baggage, including provisions. 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 61 

some arms, and the three hundred and fifty pounds 
of pearls, gathered in the slaves, struck off their 
chains and armed them. De Soto drew up his army 
and made a fierce assault upon the stockade, while, 
within one of the houses, some soldiers, a priest, 
and a friar, who had been trapped there, fought off 
the Indians at the door with swords and clubs. De 
Soto ordered the town fired; and, as the flames 
burst forth from the roofs and the natives at- 
tempted to flee, he broke through with his soldiery 
and took possession. Eighteen Spaniards and 
twelve horses were killed, and one hundred and 
fifty Spaniards and seventy horses were badly 
wounded with arrows. The Indians were slaught- 
ered almost to a man; for, as they attempted 
to flee, the Spanish horsemen drove them back 
into the burning town. There, "losing the hope 
of escape, they fought valiantly; and the Chris- 
tians getting among them with cutlasses, they 
found themselves met on all sides by their strokes, 
when many, dashing into the flaming houses, were 
smothered, and, heaped one upon another, burned 
to death. . . . The struggle lasted so long that 
many Christians, weary and very thirsty, went to 
drink at a pond nearby, tinged with the blood of 
the killed." In the fire were consumed all the 



62 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

baggage and supplies, the pearls, and the vessels 
for the Mass. 

Now De Soto, himself severely wounded, — for 
always he led his men when he ordered an attack, 
— heard that at the coast, six days distant, ships 
from Cuba commanded by his lieutenant, Maldo- 
nado, rode at anchor waiting for news of him and 
bearing supplies for the army, as well as letters 
from Dona Isabel. But he ordered that this in- 
formation be kept from his men, who were already 
disillusioned about golden Florida and eager to 
leave it. The pearls which he had intended to send 
to Cuba "for show, that their fame might raise the 
desire of coming to Florida," had been destroyed; 
and as he feared the effect of sending word of him- 
self without "either gold or silver, or other thing 
of value," he determined to send no news of 
himself until he should have discovered a rich 
country. So the ships waited their appointed 
time, and then sailed home again, bearing to Cuba 
no word of its Governor, and to Dona Isabel 
only silence. 

At the time of his decision De Soto's force was 
lessened by one hundred and two men, who had 
been slain or lost on his long march; the remainder 
were in tatter-s, or naked, under their rusty mail; 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 63 

many of his horses, all his supplies and extra cloth- 
ing, and his slim booty were destroyed; and his men 
no longer shared what little hope may have re- 
mained to him of ever reaching that richest prov- 
ince "beyond." But if his decision, made for his 
pride and his honor and against the love of his wife 
and his own chances of survival, cost him any- 
thing, no hint of that cost passed his stern lips. 
For twenty-eight days he rested at Mavilla to 
allow the wounded, who dressed their wounds with 
the fat of the slain Indians, to recover; then he 
took up the search again. 

On the 17th of November De Soto moved north- 
westward in quest of another Promised Land, a 
place called Pacaha. He crossed the Black Warrior 
and the Tombigbee rivers and a month later en- 
tered a Chickasaw town in the present State of 
Mississippi, where he went into winter quarters. 
Before spring he had his troubles with the proud 
and warlike Chickasaws. Some of the natives, 
caught in theft, were executed; and another, "his 
hands having first been cut off," was sent back to 
the chief as a visible warning. Four Spaniards, 
who pillaged some Indian houses, almost met with 
as hard a fate; for De Soto, stern with friend and 
foe alike, ordered two of them put to death and the 



64 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

other two deprived of their goods. Deaf to all 
pleas, he would have seen the sentence carried 
out but for the subtlety of Ortiz, the interpreter, 
who translated the complaints of the Indians into 
prayers for pardon. 

When, in March, De Soto was ready to depart, 
he made his usual demand for male carriers and for 
women. The Chickasaws considered this an in- 
sult to be wiped out in blood. They fell upon the 
Spaniards at dawn; and, "by the time those in the 
town were aware, half the houses were in flames.'* 
The men, running in confusion from the fire, 
blinded by the smoke and the glare, not able to find 
their arms nor to saddle their horses, fell easy prey 
to the native archers. The horses snapped their 
halters and stampeded, or were burned to death in 
their stalls. It would have been a complete victory 
for the Indians — and the end of the expedition — 
if the natives had not believed that the thunder of 
hoofs meant that the cavalry was gathering to fall 
upon them. They fled, leaving only one dead on 
the field. He had been killed with a lance by De 
Soto, who was unhorsed in the act because his 
saddle girth was loose. Eleven Spaniards and fifty 
horses perished. The army then quickly moved to 
another town and turned to at making saddles and 



OLD CITY GATEWAY, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA 
Drawing from a photograph. 



.Hqfiigoloriq £ moil gaiwsiQ 



1 




-'n.^-ndEtSEn-LcLmb, Za A'>' 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 65 

lances from ash, and grass mats, to protect their 
naked bodies from the cold. Towards the end of 
April, De Soto started on, northwestward, and, 
during the first week in May, 1541, not far from 
the Chickasaw Bluffs, he stood on the east bank of 
the Mississippi River. 

On the plains, a crossbow's shot from the steep 
timbered bank, the army pitched camp. De Soto 
set his men at once to felling trees and constructing 
vessels in which to cross the river; for on the west 
shore to the north, lay the "richest province" of 
Pacaha, whither he was bound. Presently the 
cacique of Aquixo, or Arkansas, came over to visit 
him, with his lesser chiefs and two hundred war- 
riors. The chiefs sat in the sterns of their canoes 
under skin awnings; and chiefs and warriors were 
"painted with ochre, wearing great bunches of 
white and other plumes of many colors." Some 
held "feathered shields in their hands, with which 
they sheltered the oarsmen on either side, the war- 
riors standing erect from bow to stern, holding 
bows and arrows .... These were fine-looking 
men, very large and well-formed; and what with 
the awnings, the plumes, and the shields, the pen- 
nons, and the number of people in the fleet, it ap- 
peared like a famous armada of galleys." The 



66 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

canoes also bore gifts of furs, buffalo robes, dried 
fruits, and fish for the white chief. These the ca- 
cique sent ashore; but when De Soto and his men 
came down to the water's edge, making signs to 
him to land, he hastily ordered his oarsmen to re- 
treat, evidently in apprehension of the strange men 
in armor the like of which he had never seen before. 
De Soto, construing this as hostility, ordered the 
crossbowmen to fire. Half a dozen Indians fell; 
but the canoes continued to retire in good order, 
not an Indian " leaving the oar, even though the one 
next to him might have fallen." During the month 
consumed in barge-building, the Indians appeared 
in midstream several times but came no nearer. 
Early one June morning the barges were passing to 
and fro across the Mississippi; and by sunrise all 
the men and horses were on the west bank. The 
barges were then taken to pieces and the iron spikes 
were kept for making other vessels when needed. 

Marching north through Arkansas, from some 
captives now De Soto heard more of Chisca, beyond 
Pacaha, where there was much gold. He found the 
towns along his route deserted. The inhabitants 
had fled and hidden themselves; but the Span- 
iards felt their presence in the arrow flights which 
descended on them from the ravines and thick 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 67 

timber, as they paused to find the best crossings 
over streams and marshes. After crossing Fifteen- 
Mile Bayou in St. Francis County, Arkansas, they 
marched all day until sunset over flooded ground. 
The water was sometimes as high as their waists. 
At night they reached Casqui, "where they found 
the Indians off their guard, never having heard of 
them." They seized all the buffalo robes and furs 
in the town and many of the men and women. The 
towns here were thickly set in a very fruitful coun- 
try; so that, while the footmen were despoiling one 
town, the horsemen could sweep down upon another. 
De Soto made friends with the chief of Casqui, who 
was on bad terms with the chief of Pacaha, and 
set up a cross in his town. After having "paci- 
fied" Pacaha, De Soto reconciled its chief to the 
chief of Casqui and entertained both worthies at 
dinner. Whereupon the chief of Casqui gave De 
Soto his daughter to wife; and the chief of Pa- 
caha, by an equally simple marriage ceremony, 
gave him two of his sisters, Macanoche and Mo- 
chila. Of the Pacaha ladies the discriminating Gen- 
tleman of Elvas says: "They were symmetrical, 
tall, and full; Macanoche bore a pleasant expres- 
sion; in her manners and features appeared the 
lady; the other was robust." 



68 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Again it was the same old story. No gold was 
found at Pacaha; but, at Caluga "beyond," there 
was said to be some. So eighty men were sent out 
to look over Caluga and to discover the best road 
to Chisca, where there was gold in plenty and a 
copper foundry! We can only conjecture as to 
what the Indians were trying to tell De Soto when 
he visualized, from their signs, a copper foundry. 
When his party of explorers returned after a week's 
journey northward across Missouri, they could re- 
port no gold, but they had heard of the great 
buffalo-covered prairies beyond. In their wander- 
ings they had perhaps reached the Osage, or even 
the Kansas. 

These dispiriting reports determined Don Her- 
nando not to seek for Chisca and its fabled gold. 
After a rest of some weeks in Pacaha he moved 
westward across northern Arkansas to the abun- 
dant grain fields of Tanico, probably on the Neosho 
River in Oklahoma. Here he halted for a month 
to garner supplies and fatten his horses. From 
Tanico he turned southeastward. He crossed the 
Arkansas in the vicinity of Fort Smith on the di- 
viding line between Oklahoma and Arkansas, and 
went into winter quarters about thirty miles east of 
the line at an Indian town named Autiamque on 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 69 

the south bank of the Arkansas River. Here the 
Spaniards spent three months, during one of which 
snow fell almost continuously. The shackled In- 
dians built a high palisade about the camp, hauled 
wood for fires, and trapped rabbits for food. Juan 
Ortiz, the castaway of Narvaez's expedition, died 
at Autiamque; and, as he was the only man with 
a fair knowledge of Indian speech, his loss was a 
serious blow to De Soto's army. 

Spring came, and in March, 1542, De Soto broke 
camp and continued down the Arkansas. By this 
time, of the six hundred who had come with him 
from Spain "he had not over three hundred effi- 
cient men, nor more than forty horses. Some of the 
beasts were lame, and useful only in making out the 
show of a troop of cavalry; and, for the lack of iron, 
they had gone a year without shoes." De Soto re- 
solved now to go to the seacoast, which he imagined 
to be not far off. There he would build two vessels, 
one to be sent to New Spain and the other to Cuba, 
"calculating, out of his property there, to refit and 
again go back to advance, to discover and to con- 
quer farther on towards the west." It was three 
years since he had been heard of by Doiia Isabel, 
nor did he know how she fared. In April he 
reached Guachoya, at the mouth of the Arkansas, - 



70 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

and, as usual, lodged his men in the town, from 
which most of the natives had fled at his approach. 
To ascertain how near the sea was, he sent several 
men down the Mississippi, but when they returned 
after more than a week's absence it was to tell him 
that only the river's tide, to bayous and swamps, 
stretched for miles upon miles below. Nor could 
the Indians they had captured down the river tell 
them of any other great water. 

No news of the sea — and men and horses dy- 
ing off; his little company ringed round with hostile 
tribes, whom he had treated without mercy in the 
days of his strength; and no succor anywhere; "of 
that reflection he pined." At the recognition, at 
last, of defeat the strong spirit of Don Hernando 
broke and his body weakened under the fever of 
torment that took hold of him. But still he had 
nerve. From his straw pallet he dispatched a 
messenger commanding the chief of Quigaltam 
across the river to send him carriers and provisions; 
for he was the "Child of the Sun," and "whence he 
came all obeyed him, rendering their tribute." 
The chief returned answer that the Child of the 
Sun should be able to dry up the river between 
them. On that token, he would believe. "If 
you desire to see me come where I am . . . 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 71 

neither for you nor for any man, will I set back 
one foot." 

Here, at last, by his words, was the "greatest 
prince" so long sought. De Soto was already low 
by the time his messenger returned ; but, on hear- 
ing the chief's insolent answer, his haughty spirit 
blazed up once more and he grieved that there was 
not bodily force left in him to enable him to cross 
the river and abate that pride. As an object-lesson 
not alone to the lofty cacique but also to the In- 
dians of Guachoya, whose treachery he feared, he 
sent an expedition to lay waste and slaughter the 
town of Nilco some distance off. The Spaniards 
took the inhabitants so entirely by surprise that, 
when the captain ordered all males slain, not an In- 
dian was ready to draw his bow in defense. "The 
cries of the women and children were such as to 
deafen those who pursued them. About one hun- 
dred men were slain; many were allowed to get 
away badly wounded that they might strike terror 
into those who were absent. Some persons were so 
cruel and butcher-like that they killed all before 
them, young and old, not one having resisted little 
or much." If the Indians of Guachoya had indeed 
been planning an attack, the object lesson had the 
desired effect. 



72 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

De Soto's hour had struck, and he lay dying 
in lonehness. His oflScers and men, gloomy over 
their own prospects and resentful against the com- 
mander who had led them to this pass, held aloof — 
"each one himself having need of sympathy, which 
was the cause why they neither gave him their 
companionship nor visited him." On the day be- 
fore his death he called for them. After giving 
thanks to God, he confessed his deep obligations to 
them all "for their great qualities, their love and 
loyalty to his person"; and he asked their prayers 
and their forgiveness of any wrongs that he might 
have dealt them. And, to prevent divisions, he re- 
quested them to elect his successor, saying "that 
this would greatly satisfy him, abate somewhat the 
pains he suffered, and moderate the anxiety of 
leaving them in a country, they knew not where." 
One officer responded in behalf of all, "consoling 
him with remarks on the shortness of the life of 
this world," and with many other high-sounding 
cold phrases; and requested the Governor him- 
self to select their new leader. De Soto chose 
Luis de Moscoso; and the others wilhngly swore to 
obey him. 

On the morrow, the 21st of May, having made his 
last will and his last confession, "departed this life 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 73 

the magnanimous, the virtuous, the intrepid cap- 
tain, Don Hernando de Soto, Governor of Cuba 
and adelantado of Florida. He was advanced by 
fortune, in the way she is wont to lead others, that 
he might fall the greater depth." 

The death of the Child of the Sun was kept se- 
cret from the Indians, from fear of an uprising. 
His body was buried at night just within the walls 
of the town and the Indians were told that he had 
ascended to the Sun; but the natives observed that 
the earth near the wall had been disturbed and 
were seen talking among themselves. So, as se- 
cretly as it had been buried, De Soto's body was 
dug up. A safer grave must be found for it — a 
grave safer to the living. Packed with sand to 
weight it down, and the mass wrapped and closely 
bound in "shawls," it was taken out in a canoe to 
midstream, and there under the blackness of the 
night — with no sound save a whispered order and 
one deep answering note from the waters — it sank 
into the river. 

What were these "shawls," fashioned into a 
winding-sheet for the man who had hungered for 
riches and died empty of them.f* Were they the 
mantles of marten, deer, and beaver skins the 
Indians wore and which the Spaniards so little 



74 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

esteemed? Everywhere about De Soto, on his past 
marches through that great fur-bearing country, 
lay the "richest province" he sought; and already, 
far to the north, the codfishers of France on the 
Newfoundland Banks were carrying home furs to 
trade in the markets of St* Malo and Rouen. There 
is the irony of tragedy in the picture of the intrepid 
gold-hunter's body consigned to the keeping of the 
Father of Waters shrouded in furs — which were 
to constitute the great wealth of this continent for 
more than two hundred years. On the broad flood 
of the Mississippi, flowing over De Soto's last rest- 
ing place, were to pass the canoes and the pirogues 
of the fur traders, laden with the packs of pel- 
try which should turn to gold in the French and 
English markets. 

The adelantado had fallen, but the wanderings 
of his followers were by no means over. "Some 
were glad of the death of Don Hernando de Soto, 
holding it certain that Luis de Moscoso, who was 
given to leading a gay life, preferred to see himself 
at ease in a land of Christians, rather than continue 
the toils of war, discovering and subduing, which 
the people had come to hate, finding the little rec- 
ompense that followed." After consultation with 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 75 

his officers, Moscoso decided to try to reach Mexico 
by land. On the 5th of June the Spaniards moved 
westward, headed for Panuco. They crossed 
southern Arkansas and reached the Red River near 
Texarkana, but were prevented for a week by a 
flood from crossing the river. Their march duph- 
cated many past events, in battles with Indians, 
in slave-catching raids, and ambushes. At the 
Red River they changed their course to the south 
and. entered the Caddo villages of eastern Texas; 
then, veering southwest again, they came to a large 
river, probably the middle Brazos. Here, as in 
Missouri and Oklahoma, they heard of the buffalo 
plains beyond, but did not reach them. October 
had come, winter was on the way, and the coun- 
try promised little succor through the cold and 
snow. So they turned back on their trail to one 
of the villages on the Mississippi near the mouth 
of the Arkansas, where De Soto had died. 

They now resolved to descend the Great River, 
which must somewhere empty into the sea. In 
order to do so they must build a fleet of brigantines, 
capable of weathering the winds and billows of the 
ocean. And now Moscoso performed a feat in ship- 
building, parallel to that of Narvaez at the Bay of 
Horses. At his orders timber was felled; a forge 



76 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

was set up, and iron chains converted into spikes. 
A Portuguese who had learned to saw lumber while 
a captive in Morocco, and who had brought saws 
with him, cut the planks and taught other men to 
help him. A Genoese, the only man "who knew 
how to construct vessels," built the brigantines 
with the help of four or five Biscayan carpenters; 
and two calkers, one a Genoese, the other a Sardin- 
ian, closed up the cracks with "the oakum, got 
from a plant like hemp, called enequen." A cooper, 
who was so ill that he could barely get about, man- 
aged nevertheless to make for each of the seven 
ships two half-hogsheads to hold fresh water. Sails 
were made of woven hemp and skins; ropes and 
cables from mulberry bark; and anchors from 
stirrups. In June the brigantines were finished, 
and the high floods floated them off the building 
ground into the river; fortunately, for if they had 
been dragged down the bank "there would have 
been danger of tearing open the bottoms, thereby 
entirely wrecking them, the planks being thin, 
and the spikes made short for the lack of iron." 
Twenty-two horses were taken aboard ; the others, 
being done for as moimts, were killed and their flesh 
was served. 

On July 3, 1.543, the three hundred and twenty 



HERNANDO DE SOTO 77 

Spaniards and one hundred Indian slaves set sail 
for their unknown port. The rest of the captives 
had been released. Savages along their course 
several times beset the vessels, and ten Spaniards 
were slain. Seventeen days after their departure 
from the mouth of the Arkansas they reached the 
sea. At first they sailed westward, following the 
shore line, then steered for the open but turned in 
again to the coast, thinking their frail vessel safer 
within hail of the shore. They experienced hunger 
and thirst, doubts and fears, and storms of the sea. 
Fierce head winds forced them, at one time, to 
spend fourteen days in a sheltered inlet on the Texas 
coast. On the day when again it blew fair for 
them, they "very devoutly formed a procession for 
the return of thaiiks,*' and as they moved along 
the beach they supplicated the Almighty to take 
them to a land in which they might better do 
Him service. 

On September 10, 1543, two months and seven 
days after launching their brigan tines, they entered 
the mouth of the Panuco River, which flows into 
the Gulf one hundred and fifty miles north of Vera 
Cruz. It waters the Tampico region, today made 
golden by its output of petroleum. But of oil 
Moscoso neither knew nor cared. Here Indians 



78 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

"in the apparel of Spain" told them, in their own 
tongue that there was a Christian town fifteen 
leagues inland; "they felt as though life had been 
newly given them; many, leaping on shore, kissed 
the ground; and, all on bended knees, with hands 
raised above them, and their eyes to heaven, re- 
mained untiring in giving thanks to God." Weather- 
beaten and toil-worn, they entered the town, each 
man clad in deerskins "dressed and dyed black" 
and carrying his pack on his back; and all went 
directly to the church to return thanks for their 
preservation and to take part "in the divine offices 
which for a long season had not been listened to 
by them." The three hundred and ten men were 
warmly received by their countrymen and treated 
to the best the country provided. 

In October, that Maldonado who had waited in 
vain at Pensacola Bay to deliver to Don Hernando 
Dona Istibel's letters and had twice since sought 
for him along the Florida coast, arrived at Vera 
Cruz. And he bore back to Cuba the news of Don 
Hernando's fate. When Dona Isabel learned of 
her husband's death she withered under the blow 
ahd died within a few days. And there was no man 
now in the Spanish islands who desired to tempt 
heaven in the barren land of Florida. 



CHAPTER IV 

CORONADO, CABRILLO, AND VIZCAINO 

Meanwhile other Spanish explorers were trying 
to pierce the Northern Mystery by way of the 
Pacific slope. 

West as well as east, and somewhere in the 
north, must lie the waters of the Strait of Anian, 
that direct passage from the Atlantic to China, 
if indeed the northwestern territory did not actu- 
ally abut on Asia. So reasoned the Spanish dons. 
To the northwest, some said, was an island inhab- 
ited solely by giantesque Amazons. Inland were 
the Seven Cities, situated on a great height. Their 
doors were studded with turquoises, as if feathers 
from the wings of the blue sky had dropped and 
clung there. Within those jeweled cities were 
whole streets of goldsmiths, so great was the store 
of shining metal to be worked. 

Indians were ever great story-tellers, delighting 
to weave the tales most pleasant to their hearers. 

79 



80 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

It was an Indian slave of Nufio de Guzman 
who regaled that credulous oflBcial of New Spain 
with fanciful description of the Pueblo towns of 
New Mexico. The myth led Guzman north, to 
the ruthless conquest of Sinaloa and the found- 
ing of Culiacan, still the capital city of that 
Mexican state. 

Then, in 1535, came Antonio de Mendoza from 
Old Spain to be the first Viceroy of New Spain. 
Mendoza had soon set his heart on the acquisition 
of those Seven Cities. The arrival of Vaca and 
his companions in the City of Mexico, out of the 
mysterious north, in July, 1536, added fuel to 
Mendoza's desires. An expedition must be fitted 
out immediately, to be led by Vaca's companion 
Dorantes — since Vaca himself was resolved to go 
to Spain. This plan came to nothing for the time 
being, but Vaca left the Moor Estevanico to serve 
Mendoza. 

Three years passed before Mendoza could pre- 
pare another expedition. Francisco Vasquez de 
Coronado was then (1539) made Governor of New 
Galicia and military head of the force designed 
to spread the power of Spain northward. To the 
Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza was given the spir- 
itual leadership of the expedition. Fray Marcos 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 81 

had already seen strenuous service, for he had 
been with Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. He 
had also written several works about the country. 
He had high acquirements in theology, cosmog- 
raphy, and navigation; and he was a hardy trav- 
eler, having tramped from Guatemala to Mexico. 

To Culiacan Fray Marcos and Coronado jour- 
neyed in company. Coronado there halted to es- 
tablish his authority over the outposts of New 
Galicia. Fray Marcos, with the Moor Estevanico, 
some Mexican Indians, and a few other natives 
who had come with Vaca's little band to Mexico, 
went on. Estevanico, having wandered through 
parts of the northern land with Vaca, was relied 
upon not alone to guide the friars but to insure the 
friendship of the Indians. 

At Vacapa, somewhere in Sonora, Fray Marcos 
paused and, "on Passion Sunday after dinner," 
sent Estevanico ahead to learn what he could. 
Should Estevanico hear tidings of but a fair 
country he was to send to the friar a small cross; 
for great tidings, a cross "two handfuls long"; and, 
should he discover a country richer than Mexico, 
he was to send a great cross. Imagine the pleasure- 
able agitation in the friar's breast, when, four 
days later, some of the Indians who had gone with 



82 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

the Moor came in bearing a cross "as high as a 
man " and a message urging Fray Marcos to follow 
at once. Estevanico had found a new people, who 
had told him of "the greatest thing in the world." 
He was now at a town but thirty days' journey 
from the turquoise doors of the Seven Cities which, 
he had learned, were called Cibola; and beyond 
Cibola there were other rich provinces, each one of 
which was "a much greater matter than those 
seven cities." So, as ever in these tales, the 
splendor within reach was already dimmed by the 
splendor beyond ! To Cibola, ' therefore, the friar 
set out on the second day after Easter. 

He is supposed to have gone directly north up 
the Sonora valley, though it may have been the 
Yaqui valley. As he went, from time to time he 
planted crosses; for "it appeared to me suitable 
from here on to perform acts of possession." He 
heard from the Indians on his route more details 
of Cibola and of the cities beyond. And he was 
much surprised to learn that the natives of those 



' Cibola is believed to be a Spanish form of the word Shiwina, 
by which the ZuSi called their tribal range. The Spaniards later 
called the bufifalo Cibola. It is customary for writers to state that 
Guzman and Fray Marcos set out to find the Seven Cities of Ci- 
bola, but it was not till Estevanico sent back his report that the 
name Cibola was known to the Spaniards. 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 83 

cities dressed in habits of gray wool like his own. 
These were perhaps the blanket garments made of 
narrow strips of rabbit fur and yucca fiber which 
are still woven by the Moqui Indians. Through 
the valley of the San Pedro in Arizona Fray Marcos 
continued northward; then, finding that the stream 
led him too far west, he veered to the northeast 
and reached the Gila, above its confluence with the 
San Pedro. Here he learned that Estevanico, with 
three hundred Indians, was crossing the plains to 
the northeast, where the Apaches now have their 
reservation. After a rest, on May 9, 1539, Fray 
Marcos continued his march to Cibola, which lay 
fifteen days beyond. His way now led upward, 
through rugged country, to a pass not identified, 
between the Sierra Mogoyon and Sierra Blanca 
ranges. Bad news met him on the Apache plains. 
An Indian of the Moor's escort, returning in flight, 
told him that Estevanico had been seized and made 
prisoner by the natives of Cibola. 

We know very little about the end of Estevanico, 
this African who was one of the earliest explorers of 
North America and had wandered over a greater 
part of its wilderness than any man before him or 
than any man for long after him. The Arab was 
one of a fearless race, loving freedom no doubt as 



84 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

his tribesmen of the Moroccan deserts today love 
it; and only in the desert could he enjoy it. Lifted 
again out of the thrall of slavery, which had fast- 
ened on him after his great journey from Florida, 
and given command of some three hundred savages 
to discover the cities of argent traceries and tur- 
quoise doors, he had made his tour like an Orien- 
tal chieftain, or like a Moorish prince before the 
Conquest, with pomp and display and the revels 
of power. Gifts were brought him and tribute was 
exacted. His tall, dusky body soon flaunted robes 
dyed with the colors of the rainbow. Tufts of 
brilliant feathers and strings of bells dangled from 
his arms and legs. He carried a magical gourd, 
decorated with bells and with one white and one 
scarlet feather; and sent it ahead of him to awe 
the natives in each town where he demanded en- 
trance. A score, perhaps, of Indians formed his 
personal retinue and bore on their shoulders the 
provisions, the turquoises, mantles, and feathered 
ornaments accumulated on the road. Flutes of 
reeds, shell fifes, and fish-skin drums played his 
march across the sunlit mesas. And an ever in- 
creasing harem of gayly bedecked young women 
swelled the parade of Estevanico, the black Berber 
chief, on his way to the city set in silver and blue. 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 85 

Perhaps, as has been suggested, the belled and 
feathered gourd was "bad medicine" to the In- 
dians of Hawikuh; for, when Estevanico's messen- 
ger presented it with the announcement that their 
lord was come to make peace and to cure the sick, 
the Indians became enraged and ordered the in- 
terlopers out of their country on pain of death. 
Estevanico, disdaining fear, went on. Just out- 
side the walls of Cibola he was seized. The "sun 
was about a lance high " when the men of Hawikuh 
suddenly launched their arrows upon his followers. 
Some of those who, fleeing, looked back, thought 
they had seen Estevanico fall beneath that thick 
hail of darts. 

*'It is to be believed that a long time ago, when 
roofs lay over the walls of Kya-ki-me, when smoke 
hung over the house-tops, and the ladder-rounds 
were still unbroken in Kya-ki-me, then the Black 
Mexicans came from their abodes in Everlasting 
Summerland. . . . Then and thus was killed by 
our ancients, right where the stone stands down 
by the arroyo of Kya-ki-me, one of the Black 
Mexicans, a large man, with chilli lips [lips swollen 
from chilli peppers]. . . . Then the rest ran away, 
chased by our grandfathers, and went back toward 
their country in the Land of Everlasting Summer." 



86 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

So, in part, runs the Zuni legend, today, con- 
cerning the coming and the death of Estevanico, 
the Black. ^ 

Fray Marcos was not only depressed by the news 
of Estevanico's capture, but he was in danger. 
The Indians accompanying him, from various vil- 
lages along his route, had looked on him as a 
holy man, invulnerable, under the special pro- 
tection of the morning and evening star, whose 
sign he made with his fingers in prayer and erected 
in wood along his way ; for so did they construe the 
cross, their own symbol for the mystical glory 
heralding the dawn and the night. Now they 
were afraid. The friar, after prayer for guidance, 
opened his bales and, by means of gifts, entreaties, 
and threats, persuaded them to go on. Even 
information that surely pointed to Estevanico's 
death — brought by more Indians, wounded and 
bleeding — did not deter him. He would at least 
have a glimpse of that city, if he might not enter 
it. So from a plateau, looking north. Fray Marcos 
saw the pueblo of Hawikuh on a , bare hill out- 
lined against the high timbered flank of the Zuni 
Mountains. Through the rarefied air, to which 

' Lowery, Spanish Settlements, pp. 281-82, as transcribed by 
Frank Gushing, authority on Zuiii lore and a ZuQi by adoption. 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 87 

the monk's eyes were not accustomed, the pueblo 
appeared much nearer than it was and therefore 
much larger. He raised a mound of stones, sur- 
mounted by a Httle cross, "having no implements 
at hand to make it larger," and took possession of 
the city he could see — and of all cities beyond 
which he could not see — and named them the 
New Kingdom of San Francisco. Then he has- 
tened after his Indians, who had not waited for him, 
on the homeward trail. "I returned," he says, 
"with more fear than victuals." In spite of the 
changed demeanor of the tribe on his way back, he 
reached New Galicia in safety. 

In the City of Mexico the descriptions by Fray 
Marcos of the great city, as he believed he had 
seen it with his very eyes, caused a tumult. An- 
other Mexico had at last been found! The dis- 
covery was proudly proclaimed from every pulpit. 
It passed from mouth to mouth among the cavalier 
adventurers, dicing and dueling away their time 
and impatient for richer hazards and hotter work 
for their swords. Such a tale loses nothing by oft 
telling. It may be that the enthusiasm of his au- 
diences even confused the monk's memory some- 
what, as he told the story over and over, even to 
his barber; for he pictured those distant cities as a 



88 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

paradise on earth, until nothing was now thought 
of by any man but how to reach Cibola and be rich 
forevermore. 

In a few weeks Mendoza had enhsted a company 
of three hundred to serve under Coronado. The 
majority were of the gentry. Coronado assembled 
his men at Compostela, near the Pacific coast in 
New Galicia, in February, 1540; and thither went 
the Viceroy the long journey from Mexico to send 
them off with appropriate pomp. It was the most 
brilliant review yet held in New Spain. Most of 
the cavaliers were astride of the best horses from 
the stock farms, and had equipped them with 
colored blankets trailing almost to the ground, 
besides leathern armor and silver-mounted harness. 
Their own mail was polished like woven silver, 
and the tips of their lances, held erect, flickered in 
the sun like sparks of fire. Their helmets were of 
iron or tough bullhide. In their train marched the 
foot soldiers armed with crossbow and arquebus, 
some, too, with swords and shield. The third 
division of the army was composed of several 
hundred Indian allies, their naked bodies splashed 
with black, ocher, and vermilion; and their faces, 
painted terribly for war, surmounted by the green 
and yellow and crimson plumage of parrots. At 



\ 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 89 

royal expense the expedition was equipped with 
pack-mules, cannon, and a thousand horses. For 
food on the way and to stock the new country there 
were droves of cattle and sheep, goats, and swine. 
Leading all this splendor, and dulling it by his 
own brighter glory, rode Coronado in golden 
armor. If the gray robe of Fray Marcos showed 
but dingily amid this military brilliance, yet it 
drew the awed glances of the spectators no less 
than the golden scales of Coronado's coat. This 
shining army, after all, had still to see what the 
humble monk in the drab gown had already seen 
— the magical cities of Cibola. 

To cooperate with Coronado by water, the sea- 
man Alarcon was sent up the coast with three 
vessels. Alarcon sailed to the head of the Gulf of 
California and ascended the Colorado River eighty- 
five leagues, perhaps as far as Yuma. Coronado 
divided his land forces. Leaving the main body 
at Culiacan in charge of Arellano, who was later 
one of the unsuccessful adelantados of Florida, 
Coronado pushed on ahead with Fray Marcos and 
his brother monks, eighty horse, twenty-five foot 
soldiers, some Indians and negroes, and part of 
the artillery. A month later he passed through 
Vaca's Town of the Hearts; and, continuing 



90 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

north over the divide into the San Pedro valley, 
he turned eastward and skirted the Santa Catalina 
mountains to a small Indian settlement in the 
vicinity of Fort Grant. Here he turned north- 
ward again, crossed the Gila, and, after fifteen 
days of hard march, reached the Zuni River. Some 
twenty miles farther on, Coronado and his men 
caught their first glimpse of Hawikuh. The dis- 
appointing sight was like a dash of icewater. Says 
Castaiieda, the historian of the expedition: "When 
they saw the first village, which was Cibola, such 
were the curses that some hurled at Friar Marcos 
that I pray God may protect him from them. It 
is a little, crowded village, looking as if it had been 
crumpled all up together." 

The ruins of Hawikuh, fifteen miles southwest 
of Zuni, today bear out the description of the 
disgusted Castaneda. This first of the Seven 
Cities, however, was not to be taken without 
a fight. The Zuni warriors hurled stones on 
the Spaniards. The golden-plated Coronado was 
felled and would have been killed but for the 
heroism of one of his officers who "bestrode him 
like a good knight, shielded him and dragged 
him to safety." But the Spaniards could not be 
resisted. They entered the village and found 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 91 

food there, which was the thing they were most 
in need of. 

Coronado renamed this hill stronghold Granada 
— possibly in irony — and sojourned there until 
recovered from his wounds. A deputation of In- 
dians came to him to make peace, while the rest 
of the tribesmen removed to their war towns on 
Thunder Mountain. Once more fit for the saddle, 
Coronado set about the pacification of the prov- 
ince; then sent an expedition to Tusayan, the 
present Moqui towns in Arizona, and messengers 
to Mexico with reports to Mendoza. With them 
went Fray Marcos, "because he did not think it 
was safe for him to stay in Cibola, seeing that his 
report had turned out to be entirely false, because 
the Kingdoms he had told about had not been 
found, nor the populous cities, nor the wealth of 
gold, nor the precious stones which he had reported, 
nor the fine clothes, nor other things that had been 
proclaimed from the pulpits." Thus did Casta- 
neda, the historian, twenty years later bitterly 
enumerate the list of disappointments experienced 
by himself and others of Coronado's army in the 
province of the Seven Cities. 

While Coronado was at Hawikuh, or "Gran- 
ada," detachments of his army were penetrating 



92 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

other sections of the new country. Arellano, with 
the main body left at Culiacan, was marching to 
Cibola. Melchior Diaz, one of Coronado's ablest 
scouts, was trying to make junction with Alarcon's 
ships. Diaz touched the Colorado River some 
distance above its mouth. He found letters left 
by Alarcon, and met the giant Yuma Indians — 
perhaps in the vicinity of the city of Yuma, where 
the Gila River empties into the Colorado. These 
Indians were then as now of unusual height and 
powerfully made, so that one man could lift a log 
which several Spaniards could not move. They 
went stark naked and in cold weather carried fire- 
brands to keep them warm. So Diaz called the 
Colorado Rio del Tizon, or Firebrand River. Here 
Diaz died from an accidental lance thrust, and his 
band returned to Sonora. 

Meanwhile a report from the Moqui country 
came to Coronado of a great river flowing far 
down between red mountain walls. This news 
inspired Coronado to send Lopez de Cardenas — 
the "good knight" who had saved his life — to 
have a look at it; and here is the description of 
Grand Canyon by Cardenas, the first white man 
to view the great gorge of the Colorado, as set down 
by Castaneda:. 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 93 

After they had gone twenty days' march they came to 
the banks of a river, which are so high that from the 
edge of one bank to the other appeared to be three or 
four leagues in the air. The country was elevated and 
full of low twisted pines, very cold, and lying open to- 
ward the north. . . . They spent three days on this 
bank looking for a passage down to the river, which 
looked from above as if the water were six feet across, 
although the Indians said it was half a league wide. 
It was impossible to descend, for after these three days 
Captain Melgosa and one Juan Galeras and another 
companion, who were the three lightest and most agile 
men, made an attempt to go down at the least difficult 
place, and went down until those who were above were 
unable to keep sight of them. They returned about 
four o'clock in the afternoon, not having succeeded in 
reaching the bottom on account of the great difficulties. 
. . . They said they had been down about a third of 
the way and that the river seemed very large from the 
place which they reached. . . . Those who stayed 
above had estimated that some huge rocks on the sides 
of the cliffs seemed to be about as tall as a man, but 
those who went down swore that when they reached 
these rocks they were bigger than the great tower 
of Seville.* 

While Cardenas was looking at the Grand Can- 
yon, some Indians, led by one whom the Spaniards 
nicknamed Bigotes (Whiskers) , came to Zuni from 
the east. They told of great towns, and brought 

' Winship, The Coronado Expedition, p. 489. The Giralda, or 
famous bell-tower of the Cathedral of Seville, is 275 feet high. 



94 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

a picture of a buflFalo drawn on a piece of hide. 
Vaca had told of "humpbacked cows," and here 
were people who lived on the very borders of the 
cow country. So Hernando de Alvarado was sent 
east with twenty men, instructed to return within 
eighty days, and Fray Juan de Padilla went with 
him. Some fifty miles east of Zuni Alvarado 
came on the famous pueblo of Acoma, or People of 
the White Rock, three hundred and fifty-seven 
feet in the air. Acoma was so lofty, says Casta- 
neda "that it was a very good musket that could 
throw a ball as high." A broad stairway of about 
two hundred steps began the ascent, then one 
hundred narrower steps followed; and "at the top 
they had to go up about three times as high as a 
man by means of holes in the rock, in which they 
put the points of their feet, holding on at the same 
time by their hands. There was a wall of large 
and small stones at the top, which they could 
roll down without showing themselves, so that no 
army could possibly be strong enough to capture 
the village. On the top they had room to sow and 
store a large amount of corn, and cisterns to collect 
snow and water." The natives came down to the 
plain and at first offered battle, but presently 
consented to make peace. 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 95 

Proceeding eastward, Alvarado went a week's 
journey beyond to the Tigua villages lying above 
Albuquerque on both sides of the Rio Grande. 
Pressing on, he visited the towns of Cieuye, or 
Pecos (in the valley of the upper Pecos River and 
at the foot of the Santa Fe mountains) and the 
Buffalo Plains to the east. The Pecos Indians 
received him warmly and escorted him into the 
town "with drums and pipes something like flutes " 
and gave him presents of cloth and turquoises. 

By the close of autumn Coronado's several 
detachments reassembled in the village of Tiguex 
near the site of Bernalillo, above Albuquerque. 
Here they listened to tales of a new El Dorado 
from an Indian whom Alvarado had picked up 
and had dubbed El Turco (the Turk) "because he 
looked like one." The new El Dorado was called 
Quivira. El Turco said that in Quivira, which 
was his own country and far to the east, there was 
a river two leagues wide, where fish as big as 
horses sported themselves. Great numbers of huge 
canoes, with twenty rowers on a side and with high 
carved golden prows thrusting up among their 
white sails, floated on its surface like water lilies 
on a pond. The chief of that country took his 
afternoon nap under a tall spreading tree decorated 



96 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

with an infinitude of little golden bells on which 
gentle zephyrs played his lullaby. Even the com- 
mon folk there had their ordinary dishes made of 
"wrought plate"; and the pitchers and bowls were 
of solid gold. El Turco could readily prove his 
tale if only he could recover his wonderful golden 
bracelets of which he had been robbed by the 
natives of Cicuye, the town of Chief Whiskers' 
countrymen where Alvarado had recently been 
entertained with such hospitality and good will. 

So Coronado sent Alvarado back to Cicuye to 
demand the bracelets. The natives of Cicuye 
bluntly said that El Turco was a liar; whereupon 
Alvarado put Whiskers and the head chief, a very 
old man, in chains. Enraged at this treachery, 
the Indians took up their arrows and drove the 
Spaniards out, denouncing them as men who had 
no respect for their word. "This began the want 
of confidence in the word of the Spaniards when- 
ever there was talk of peace from this time on," 
says Castaneda. Coronado followed up the sei- 
zure of Whiskers and the old chief of Cicuye by a 
levy of three hundred manias, or pieces of cloth. 
The Tiguas, not having the manias, were stripped 
of their garments. A Spanish oflScer forcibly pos- 
sessed himself of an Indian's handsome young wife. 



CORONADO, CABRILLO. VIZCAINO 97 

The Indians rose. In the melee the Spaniards 
were victorious; and presently the natives, from 
the roofs, were making their symbol of peace — 
the cross sign of the evening and morning star. 
The Spaniards made the same sign by crossing 
their spears. The natives threw down their arms. 
Contrary to the peace pledge, some two hundred 
of them were seized and stakes were erected to 
burn them. Seeing the rest of their number 
"beginning to roast," a hundred captives made 
valiant, if futile, efforts to defend themselves. 
Only one or two escaped to warn their friends 
that Spaniards speaking peace must never again 
be trusted. 

Heavy snows and severe cold so hampered 
the army during the winter that not until early in 
spring was the surrounding country "pacified." 
A great many Indians had been slain, but many 
more had escaped to their mountain retreats. In 
vain had Coronado sent deputations seeking peace. 
The invariable answer was that the Spaniards were 
false men who had desecrated the star symbol, the 
sign of inviolable peace; the wind of the desert 
might hearken to their promises, but never the 
Indians. So when Coronado took up his march 
he left implacable enemies in his wake. 



98 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

But the "great good news of the Turk gave no 
little joy," and the restless conqueror prepared 
to set out for Golden Quivira. Among the Indians 
news traveled fast, and it is easy to imagine 
the consternation felt by the tribes of the lower 
Mississippi Valley, in the spring of 1541, to hear 
of the approach of the two great invading expedi- 
tions from opposite directions, each of which was 
conquering every tribe and village on the way. De 
Soto had reached Tampa Bay in 1539, just about 
the time when Fray Marcos came in view of 
Cibola. Coronado had left Culiacan when De 
Soto was on the Savannah River; when Coronado 
reached the Rio Grande pueblos, De Soto was 
marching south through Alabama toward Mobile 
Bay. While Coronado was in winter quarters 
at Tiguex, on the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, 
De Soto was in camp at the Chickasaw town 
in Mississippi; and now Coronado entered the 
Texas plains shortly before De Soto crossed 
the Mississippi. 

On April 23, 1541, Coronado set out under the 
guidance of El Turco; and four days later crossed 
the Pecos in the vicinity of Puerto de Luna, 
New Mexico. He continued in an easterly course 
across the great plains (where the Arab-like 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 99 

Apaches roved and hailed him fearlessly from the 
doors of their painted skin tents) and into Texas. 
Here enormous herds of buffalo provided an abun- 
dance of meat. Castaneda speaks of seeing the 
skyHne between the legs of bison grazing at a 
distance. "This country," he says, "is like a 
bowl, so that when a man sits down, the horizon 
surrounds him all around at the distance of a 
musket shot." The plains baffled the hunting 
parties. They wandered in circles about the heaps 
of "cows" they had killed until musket shots 
from the main camp gave them direction ; and some 
hunters were lost. It seemed as if the vast prairie 
itself designed the destruction of the strangers 
who had invaded its solitude, for it wiped out their 
trails as the sea obliterates the mark of the keel. 
Castaneda exclaims, wonderingly: "Who could 
believe that a thousand horses and five hundred of 
our cows, and more than five thousand rams and 
ewes, and more than fifteen hundred friendly In- 
dians and servants, in travelling over these plains, 
would leave no more trace where they had passed 
than if nothing had been there — nothing — so 
that it was necessary to make piles of bones and 
cow-dung now and then so that the rear-guard 
could follow the army. The grass never failed to 



100 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

become erect after it had been trodden down, and, 
although it was short, it was as fresh and straight 
as before." 

June found the army among the Teyas Indians 
in western Texas. By this time so many of El 
Turco's tales had been disproved that he traveled 
in irons. Food and water became scarce. Most 
important of all, the Teyas guides told Corona- 
do that Quivira was north, not east. Coronado 
therefore ordered the main body, under Arellano, 
back to Tiguex, in New Mexico. He himself, with 
only thirty horsemen and six footmen, would push 
north, to follow the new directions. In vain his 
men besought him not to leave them leaderless. 
The melancholy induced, even in seasoned plains- 
men at times, by the broad monotonous stretches 
of prairie obsessed them. They feared that death 
would halt them somewhere on their lost march 
and toss their skeletons among the buffalo bones 
sprinkling that relentless land which had refused 
their impress as conquerors. They feared to see 
their general's gleaming casque disappear once and 
forever over the northern rim of the sky, leaving 
no more trace than the wing of a golden eagle pass- 
ing through the ether. But Coronado stubbornly 
held on his way — 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 101 

"Still nursing the unconquerable hope, 
Still clutching the inviolable shade." 

The army separated near the upper waters of 
the Brazos. After some thirty days Coronado and 
his little band crossed the Arkansas into Kansas. 
They continued in a northeasterly direction and, 
about a week later, reached the first of the Quivira 
towns in the vicinity of Great Bend, Kansas, 
where, then and for centuries after, lived Wich- 
ita Indians. Here no sparkling sails floated like 
petals on the clear surface of an immeasurable 
stream. No lordly chief drowsed to the murmur 
of innumerable bells. The water pitchers on the 
shoulders of the women, stooping in the low en- 
trances of their grass- thatched huts, were not 
golden. "Neither gold nor silver nor any trace of 
either was found among these people." El Turco 
confessed that he had been detailed by the tribes- 
men of those whom Coronado had incinerated to 
lead the lying strangers out on the plains "and 
lose them." Wandering over the sun-baked prai- 
rie, food and water failing and their horses dy- 
ing, the Spaniards would become so weak that 
should any return, the Tiguas could "kill them 
without any trouble, and thus they could take re- 
venge for what had been done to them ... as 



102 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

for gold he did not know where there was any 
of it." 

So Coronado had the Turk garroted, and set up 
a cross with the inscription, "Francisco Vasquez de 
Coronado, general of an expedition, reached this 
place." Then he turned back, empty-handed; for 
even explorers whom he had sent out northward, 
and who may have reached the Nebraska line, had 
found no sign of rich peoples nor of precious metals. 
Meanwhile Arellano had reached Tiguex safely. 
Arrived there some weeks later, Coronado sent out 
exploring parties, one of which visited Taos, that 
interesting town still lying between the Rio Hon- 
do and the Taos Mountains. Here the Spaniards 
found a high type of Indian civilization, large well- 
stocked granaries, and wooden bridges flung across 
the Taos River to connect the eighteen divisions 
of the town.^ 

Winter bore hard on Coronado's men, who were 
on scant rations and almost naked. The oflScers 
seized the most and the best of everything for 
themselves, and dangerous dissensions arose in 

' Taos today has about 425 Indian inhabitants; and it is also 
the home of a small but noted school of American painters, who 
are bringing the life and character of the Pueblo Indians and the 
color and atmospheje of the southwestern mesas prominently into 
American art. 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 103 

the camp. Towards the end of winter Coronado, 
riding at the ring on a festival day, fell beneath 
the hoofs of his companion's horse and was danger- 
ously injured in the head. His illness and his fail- 
ures preyed on his mind; and he resolved to seek 
no farther for wealth, but to return to his wife in 
Mexico. In April, 1542, he and his disappointed 
band turned homeward. At that very time, far 
to the east, Hernando de Soto also was giving up 
the Golden Quest and turning his face towards 
Mexico, to die of a broken spirit a month later. 
Hungry and tattered, and harassed by Indians, 
Coronado and his army painfully made their way 
back towards New Galicia. The soldiers were in 
open revolt; they dropped out by the score and 
went on pillaging forays at their pleasure. With 
barely a hundred followers, Coronado presented 
himself before Mendoza, bringing with him noth- 
ing more precious than the gold-plated armor in 
which he had set out two years before. He had 
enriched neither himself nor his King, so his end 
is soon told: "he lost his reputation, and shortly 
thereafter the government of New Galicia." 

Two soldiers had been left in Kansas; their fate 
is not known. Fray Juan Padilla, Fray Juan 
de la Cruz, and a lay brother, Luis Descalona, 



104 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

remained with six companions in New Mexico. 
The friars were resolved to bring about the con- 
version of these Indians, whose settled modes of 
living seemed to promise a good opportunity. La 
Cruz, an old man, was well treated at first by the 
chiefs at Tiguex but was killed eventually. Des- 
calona went east to the Pecos River and pre- 
sumably was slain. Fray Juan Padilla, with a 
Portuguese, two oblates, and some native guides 
went back to Quivira, that is, to Kansas. He 
won the love of the Indians of that region ; but, not 
content with this harvest, he set out for the towns 
of some of their foes. On the way he was mur- 
dered, either by natives of the towns he sought or 
by his own guides from Tiguex. The Portuguese 
and the two oblates witnessed his martyrdom from 
a neighboring hill; and in time they made their 
way across Oklahoma and Texas to Panuco, where 
they told the story. And, says a Spanish writer of 
the day, it was then recalled that "great prodigies" 
were seen at his death, "as it were the earth 
flooded, globes of fire, comets, and obscurations of 
the sun." 

Today we may doubt the pious historian's 
"great prodigies." But we look over that land, 
where many temple spires rise in security to 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 105 

proclaim one Christ, however variously sought, 
and we are moved to honor the zeal and devotion 
of Fray Juan Padilla and his two brother monks 
— the first unarmed mission of the Church upon 
the soil of the United States. 

"Know that on the right hand of the Indies 
there is an island called California, very close to 
the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it was 
peopled by black women, without any man among 
them, for they lived in the fashion of Amazons. 
They were of strong and hardy bodies, of ardent 
courage and great force. Their island was the 
strongest in all the world, with its steep cliffs and 
rocky shores. Their arms were all of gold, and 
so was the harness of the wild beasts which they 
tamed to ride; for in the whole island there was no 
metal but gold." So wrote Montalvo, the author 
of Esplandidn, a romance which, first published in 
1510, rapidly became the "best seller" of its day, 
running through at least four editions. This book 
may have influenced the Emperor Charles V in 
banning fiction from the Indies, where the imagina- 
tions of both Spaniards and natives needed no 
artificial stimulation. At all events, both Span- 
iards and Indians were forbidden to peruse these 



106 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

romances. Probably the Indians obeyed the wise 
decree. But evidently in the case of the Spaniards 
the mischief had already been done; and hence the 
name, CaHfornia, applied long since to a region 
which has seen more romance and produced more 
gold than ever were conceived of in the imagination 
of the ancient Spanish author. 

The legend of the Amazons was curiously inter- 
woven with both the discovery and the naming of 
California. While Guzman and Coronado were 
moving north by land others were advancing by 
sea. Cortes, conqueror of Mexico, was urged 
north especially by rumors of a rich province in- 
habited only by women, like the island in Mon- 
talvo's tale. His nephew, Francisco Cortes, was 
sent from Colima to follow the clue (1524). The 
Amazon province was not found, nor yet was belief 
in it shattered. Nine years later Jimenez, one 
of Cortes's explorers, discovered the Peninsula of 
Lower California, thought it to be an island, and 
reported it to have pearls. A pearl bearing island, 
"down the coast toward India," fitted in with 
Cortes's notions of geography. So he personal- 
ly led a colony to the "island," which he named 
Santa Cruz. 

The dismal failure of the colony was only a 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 107 

temporary discouragement. Hoping to forestall 
Viceroy Mendoza, Cortes rushed an exploring ex- 
pedition north under Francisco de Ulloa (1539). 
Nearly a year before Alarcon, whom Mendoza 
sent to aid Coronado, TJlIoa reached the head of 
the Gulf, rounded the peninsula, and returned 
with the news that it was not after all an island, 
but tierra firme. Now the name Santa Cruz 
gave way to "California," the change being 
a iiew application of the old belief in the Am- 
azon island, as recorded in Montalvo's novel. 
Perhaps Cortes, grim soldier, had a passion for 
light reading — even as today captains of indus- 
try refresh themselves with Sherlock Holmes — for 
the historian Herrera states that it was he who 
bestowed the name upon the peninsula which he 
tried in vain to colonize. Possibly the name was 
bestowed in derision, but just when, or how, or by 
whom, no one has established with certainty. 

Ulloa's voyage marks the close of Cortes's ef- 
forts to explore the northern Pacific, but the 
work was continued by Viceroy Mendoza . Through 
the death of Alvarado, the dashing conqueror of 
Guatemala, in the Mixton War (1541), Mendoza 
inherited a fleet which had been prepared for 
exploration in the Pacific, and with it he carried 



108 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

out Alvarado's plans by dispatching two expedi- 
tions, one up the California coast, the other 
across the Pacific. 

The expedition "in the West towards China or 
the Spice Islands" was led by Lopez de Villalobos. 
Sailing in November, 1542, he took possession of 
the Philippine Islands and thus attached them 
to Mexico. Villalobos died in the Moluccas; his 
enterprise went to pieces; but the voyage made a 
link between California and the Philippines. 

Mendoza's other sea expedition, which was to 
explore along the outer coast of the peninsula and 
northward in search of the Strait of Anian and new 
provinces, left Mexico on June 27, 1542, under 
command of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. At this 
date Hernando de Soto's body had been consigned 
to the Father of Waters and his defeated army 
led by Moscoso was marching west across Arkansas 
in search of Panuco, and Coronado with a hundred 
ragged followers was returning to Compostella 
after two fruitless years in New Mexico and the 
Buffalo Plains. 

Of Cabrillo little is known except that he was a 
Portuguese by birth and a skilled mariner; and he 
is supposed to have been in the service of Cortes 
during the conquest of Mexico. With two vessels 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 109 

smaller than any coasting schooner of today, badly 
built and scantily outfitted — a crew chiefly com- 
posed of conscripts and natives, and the sturdy 
Levantine pilot, Bartolome Ferrelo, or Ferrer, 
Cabrillo departed on the trail of adventure. Ow- 
ing to calms and contrary winds and the frequent 
necessity to heave to and send ashore for fresh 
water, his progress was slow. By the 10th of 
August he had passed the most northerly point 
reached by Ulloa. Eleven days later he landed at 
the bay of San Quentin and took possession in the 
name of the King. Here a week was spent in 
taking in water and repairing sails and in receiving 
friendly visits from Indians who said that they had 
seen other Spaniards in the interior — probably 
some of Alarcon's or Coronado's band. The diar- 
ist of the expedition says that these Indians were 
smeared with a "white paste" in such a fashion 
that "they appeared likfe men in hose and slashed 
doublets." On the 28th of September, Cabrillo 
discovered "a port closed and very good, which 
they named San Miguel." This was the beautiful 
Bay of San Diego. On the purpled blue waters of 
this bay, safely sheltered by the long high stretch 
of Point Loma, their ships rode at anchor while a 
terrific storm raged without for three days. 



110 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

When the gale had subsided Cabrillo continued 
northward. He discovered the islands of Santa 
Catalina and San Clemente, and the pleasant 
Bay of Santa Monica, which he called the Bay of 
the Smokes, or Bay of the Fires, because of the 
low curling clouds of blue smoke rising from the 
Indian villages along its shores. On the 10th of 
October he went ashore at San Buenaventura, 
where he visited an Indian settlement which he 
called the Town of Canoes, in allusion to the ex- 
cellent craft which the natives possessed. Then, 
sailing west, he passed through the Santa Barbara 
Channel and on the eighteenth reached Point 
Conception, which he named Cabo de Galera be- 
cause it was shaped like a galley. Here northwest 
winds drove him into Cuyler*s harbor on San 
Miguel Island. 

Two weeks later a southwester filled Cabrillo's 
sails and carried his vessels round the cape and 
along the high rocky coast, where the Santa Lucia 
Mountain comes down to the sea. Below Point 
Pinos the vessels were driven northward by a storm 
and became separated. Having missed the Bay of 
Monterey, Half Moon Bay, and the Golden Gate, 
Cabrillo turned back and discovered the harbor 
where Drake cast anchor twenty-five years later, 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 111 

and which is still known as Drake's Bay. Appar- 
ently Cabrillo now stood well out to sea, for again 
he missed the Golden Gate and Monterey Bay. 

He put into San Miguel Island for winter; and 
there "on the 3d of the month of January, 1543, 
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, captain of the said ships, 
departed from this life, as the result of a fall which 
he suffered on said island when they were there 
before, from which he broke an arm near the 
shoulder ... at the time of his death he emphati- 
cally charged them not to leave off exploring as 
much as possible all that coast." So, in a few 
words, we are told all we know of the character of 
Cabrillo, who had battered his way up the Califor- 
nia coast in the pain of an injury sufficient to bring 
him to death, and whose last words to his men 
were to press on. His bones lie under the white 
sands of San Miguel Island, undiscovered yet — 
save perhaps by some Portuguese or Levantine 
fisherman of a later time, driving the supports 
of his driftwood shack deep down through the 
shifting sand. 

The command now devolved upon the pilot 
Ferrelo. Though frequently halted and swept 
about by heavy storms and suffering from dimin- 
ished supplies, this fearless mariner, obeying his 



112 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

master's behest, held on northward. He sailed 
to a point near the mouth of Rogue River, Oregon, 
when he turned back, through "travail" worse 
than any Cabrillo had experienced. On April 14, 
1543, he reached the home port of Navidad. 

Interest in California was revived by develop- 
ments in the Far East. Though Villalobos had 
taken possession of the Philippines in the year of 
Ferrelo's voyage, the Spaniards had not occupied 
the islands. But in 1559 Philip II, tempted by the 
profits accruing to the Portuguese from their spice 
trade, ordered Velasco, the Mexican Viceroy, to 
equip an expedition for discovery among those 
islands and to search out a route for return voyages 
to Mexico — for the problem of the return voy- 
age had hitherto baffled mariners. In 1564, after 
many delays, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi set sail 
from Navidad and, in the following year, took 
possession of the Philippines. Legazpi sent one 
of his vessels, with his chief navigator, Fray An- 
dres de Urdaneta, to discover the return route to 
New Spain. Urdaneta, turning northward, entered 
the Japan current, which carried him to the coast 
of northern California whence he descended to 
Mexico. By a happy combination of chance and 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 113 

science he had solved the problem of the return 
route. Thus a regular trade route was established 
from Manila to Mexico and thence to Spain. The 
Manila galleons sailed the course marked out 
by Urdaneta, across the Pacific to a point off 
Cape Mendocino and down the coast to Acapulco. 
It was a hard voyage and frequently the vessels 
reached the American coast much in need of re- 
pairs and with a loss of half the crew from scurvy. 
There was therefore need of a port on the northern 
coast. Also, Spanish interests in the Pacific were 
threatened by the possibility that English, French, 
or Dutch freebooters in the Atlantic might dis- 
cover the Strait of Anian and take control of the 
direct route to the Spice Islands even as Portugal 
had formerly monopolized the African route. In 
fact, Drake, who appeared on the California coast 
in 1579, having plundered Spanish harbors and a 
Manila galleon on his northward trip, was believed 
to have discovered the Strait and to have sailed 
homeward through it. Six years later. Cavendish 
looted and burned the Santa Ana, a Manila gal- 
leon, off California. Dutch mariners rounded Cape 
Horn, whose name commemorates one of them, and 
pushed their operations into the western seas. And 
Spain's Armada had been destroyed by Drake, the 



114 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

man who, it was feared, knew the whereabouts 
of the Strait of Anian. 

To meet the emergency, Cermeno, commander 
of one of the PhiHppine galleons, was sent on his 
return from Manila to seek a port on the Cali- 
fornia coast, but he was wrecked in Drake's Bay 
(1595). His cargo of beeswax and fine porcelain 
still lies at the bottom of the bay, awaiting a 
modern treasure seeker. 

At the same time Sebastian Vizcaino was com- 
missioned to colonize Lower California as a defen- 
sive outpost. Vizcaino was a prosperous merchant 
in the Manila trade. He had been aboard the Santa 
Ana when Cavendish attacked her. Because he 
did not belong to the aristocratic class from which 
Spain selected her conquerors, even Velasco was 
opposed to him and chose him chiefly for want 
of any one else suitable for the work. Vizcaino 
planted a colony at La Paz in 1597, but the Indians 
broke it up. He returned, defeated but not dis- 
heartened, and secured a new contract, after sev- 
eral years of delay, having at last won over the 
new Viceroy, the Count of Monterey, who was 
forced to admit that Vizcaino possessed more 
ability than he had expected to find in a mere 
merchant. When Vizcaino had finally made his 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 115 

way through the maze of red tape to the command 
of three vessels and a company of soldiers, the 
Spanish monopoly in the Far East had received 
a shock; for the British East India Company, 
formed in 1600, had carried the trade war into 
the Orient, where — by reason of the recent union 
with Portugal — Spain had thought herself secure. 
Thus did the importance of the direct route to the 
East magnify from year to year. 

On May 5, 1602, Vizcaino sailed from Acapulco. 
He made detailed explorations along the outer 
coast and among the islands and was retarded 
frequently by high winds, so that it was November 
when he dropped anchor in San Miguel Bay, to 
which he gave its present name of San Diego. 

On the 16th of December occurred the capital 
event of the voyage, the discovery of Monterey 
Bay. At seven in the evening Vizcaino entered 
the harbor. On the next day he sent an officer 
ashore "to make a hut where Mass could be said 
and to see if there was water, and what the country 
was like. He found that there was fresh water 
and a great oak near the shore, where he made the 
hut and arbor to say Mass," writes Father Ascen- 
sion, who accompanied the expedition. Because 
of the shortage of men and supplies, Vizcaino 



116 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

decided to send a ship back to Mexico from this 
port asking for more men and provisions. 

Vizcaino proceeded northwards, making careful 
examination of the coast, yet missing that treasure 
of waters lying behind the great pillars of Golden 
Gate, and came to anchor in Drake's Bay, from 
which he was driven almost immediately by off- 
shore winds. On January 12, 1603, he reached 
Cape Mendocino, which his orders cited, in very 
general terms, as the northern limit of his explo- 
rations. Off the Cape he encountered so furious a 
wind, "together with so much rain and fog, as to 
throw us into great doubt whether to go forward or 
to turn back, for it was as dark in the daytime as at 
night." A council was held to decide whether to 
continue or to return; and the condition of the 
crew seemed to make retreat imperative. For a 
week, however, storms from the south prevent- 
ed the return; and on the seventeenth, at night, 
Vizcaino's ship was struck "by two seas which 
made it pitch so much that it was thought the keel 
was standing on end, and that it was even sinking." 
The violent motion threw "both sick and well from 
their beds." Vizcaino was flung with such force 
upon some boxes that he "broke his ribs with the 
heavy blow." The diarist concludes that "the 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 117 

currents and seas" were carrying them "rapidly to 
the Strait of Anian," for they were in forty-two 
degrees of latitude, when a light northwest wind 
enabled them to head southward and "brought us 
out of this trouble." 

Though the friendly Indians of Monterey sig- 
naled to them with smoke as they passed, they 
did not enter the harbor because the state of 
health aboard was so bad, "and the sick were 
clamoring, although there was neither assistance 
nor medicines, nor food to give them except rotten 
jerked beef, gruel, biscuits, and beans and chick-peas 
spoiled by weevils." 

Vizcaino and his crew arrived at Mazatlan in 
February, 1603, "in the greatest affliction and 
travail ever experienced by Spaniards; for the sick 
were crying aloud, while those who were able to 
walk or to go on all fours were unable to manage 
the sails." Here Vizcaino himself, regardless of 
his feeble condition, set off inland on foot to bring 
relief from the nearest town to his companions. 
In a month they were able to set sail for Acapulco 
where they arrived on the 21st of March, and 
learned that most of the men on the ship which 
Vizcaino had sent back from Monterey for more 
men and supplies, had died on the way. Later, 



118 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

on reaching the City of Mexico, they found the 
crew of the third ship, a frigate, which they had 
beheved lost in the hurricane off Mendocino. It 
seems that the frigate had sailed one degree farther 
north, to a point named in the diary Cape Blanco; 
and her crew told of a large river which they 
had seen. 

By placing that "river" several degrees too far 
north, the mapmakers and historians of that day 
set going another myth which was to rival the 
Strait of Anian — the myth of the River of the 
West. And as the fable of the Strait was to lead 
to the discovery of Bering Strait, so the myth of 
the River of the West was to end with the later 
discovery of the Columbia. 

The Count of Monterey immediately planned 
to occupy the port bearing his name and naturally 
selected Vizcaino to lead the enterprise. But, 
during the inevitable delays between plan and 
action, a new viceroy succeeded Monterey, and the 
plan was abandoned for a project to found a port 
in the mid-Pacific. With this in view, in 1611 
Vizcaino was sent out to explore some islands 
called suggestively Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata 
— Rich in Gold and Rich in Silver. Nothing 
came of this venture; and so Vizcaino, ruined in 



CORONADO, CABRILLO, VIZCAINO 119 

health and fortune, fades out of the pages of 
historical narrative, though he is known to have 
lived for some years afterwards. And the history 
of Alta California remained obscure in the fog for 
a hundred and sixty years. 



CHAPTER V 



FLORIDA 



Explorers first, then colonizers. Now interest in 
Florida, already aroused by the journey of Vaca, 
was quickened to a lively heat when, late in 
1543, Moscoso and the remnants of De Soto's 
band at last straggled into the City of Mexico. It 
would appear* that hardships and failures could 
in no wise impair a Spaniard's ability for story- 
telling; for Moscoso and his tattered comrades 
were soon spinning for others the golden web 
of romance in which they themselves had been 
snared. Glowing pictures they gave of the north 
country, especially of Coosa (in Alabama), where 
they had been well fed and where one or two of 
their number had remained to dally with Creek 
damsels. The Viceroy Mendoza, ambitious to ex- 
tend his power into the Northern Mystery, at 
once offered to finance an expedition if Moscoso 
would undertake it. But while Moscoso's zeal for 

120 



FLORIDA 121 

golden Florida might inspire his imagination to 
dazzling flights of fancy, it was inadequate to 
stir his feet one step again in that direction. So 
Mendoza's project came to nothing. 

It was noticed that the Mexicans valued highly 
some of the fur apparel brought back by Moscoso's 
men. And the next year, 1544, two Spanish gen- 
tlemen sought from the King the right to con- 
quer Florida, for the purpose of bringing deerskins 
and furs into Mexico, as well as in the hope of dis- 
covering pearls, mines, and whatever other marvels 
had embroidered Moscoso's romance. But the King 
refused their petition. In his refusal he was influ- 
enced in part by religious and humane motives. De- 
spite the presence of priests and friars, the various 
expeditions to the north thus far had taken no time 
from treasure hunting to convert natives or to estab- 
lish missions. The Church was now considering 
the question of sending out its own expedition to 
Florida, unhampered by slave-catching soldiers. 

Perhaps this idea of a conquest by the Cross, 
unaided — and unhampered — by the sword, was 
born in the mind of Fray Luis Cancer, a devout 
and learned Dominican. Fray Luis was living in 
the convent of Santo Domingo in the City of 
Mexico not long after Vaca and Moscoso arrived 



122 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

with their wonder tales. The account of the hun- 
dreds of savages who had followed Vaca from village 
to village must have moved the good friar's heart 
with zeal and pity. And he can have been no less 
stirred by the tales told by Moscoso's men of the 
gallant butchery their sworde had done — of the 
clanking chains that made music on the day's 
march, and the sharp whisper in the night of the 
flint, as it pressed against an iron collar. Fray 
Luis desired to see all heathen made free in God's 
favor. The oppressions his countrymen practiced 
upon the natives filled him with horror. As a 
missionary, first in Espanola and then in Porto 
Rico, he had seen the hopelessness of trying to 
spread religion in territories which were being 
swiftly depopulated by ruthless conquerors. He 
had therefore gone to Guatemala, to the monas- 
tery of Santiago whose head was the noble Las 
Casas. At that time one province of Guatemala 
was known as the "Land of War" because of the 
ferocity of its natives. Las Casas had influenced 
the Governor to forbid that territory to Spaniards 
for five years. Then he had sent Fray Luis, who 
had meanwhile learned the language of the natives, 
to the chief to request permission for the monks to 
come there. With his gentle words. Fray Luis 



FLORIDA 123 

took also little gifts, trinkets, mirrors, and beads 
of bright colors such as would delight the savages. 
He made so good an impression on the chief that 
the permission he sought was readily given. And 
in a few years the Land of War became the Land of' 
the True Peace — Vera Paz — where no Span- 
iards dwelt save a few Dominican friars and where 
at morning and evening Indian voices chanted the 
sacred songs to the accompaniment of the Indian 
flutes and drums which had formerly quickened to 
frenzy the warriors setting out to slaughter. And 
for this spiritual conquest Fray Luis had received 
the title of Alferez de la Fe, Standard Bearer of 
the Faith. 

But Fray Luis was not content to eat the fruit 
of his labors in Vera Paz. The Standard Bearer 
would push on to another frontier. He went to 
the City of Mexico (1546) because there he would 
find the latest reports of newly discovered countries. 
Here Fray Luis heard the stories which had been 
told there by Vaca and Moscoso and resolved to 
bear his standard to Florida. 

He found willing comrades in three monks of 
his own order, Gregorio de Beteta, Juan Garcia, 
and Diego de Tolosa. Fray Gregorio and Fray 
Juan had already made three or four unsuccessful 



124 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

attempts to reach Florida by land from Mexico, 
under a total misapprehension as to distance and 
direction. His plans consummated under the or- 
ders of Las Casas, Fray Luis went to Spain to 
urge the great project with the King. His pe- 
tition was soon granted. When he returned to 
Mexico (1548) he had the royal authority to es- 
tablish a mission at some point in Florida where 
Spaniards had not yet spilled native blood. In 
1549 Fray Luis and his three companions sailed 
from Vera Cruz in an unarmed vessel. At Havana 
he took on board a converted native girl named 
Magdalena, who was to act as interpreter and 
guide. Perhaps it was almost impossible for the 
pilot to distinguish one inlet from another, with 
certainty, on that much indented coast line, where 
the low shore presents no variation to the eye for 
miles; for, instead of landing at a new point, the 
monks first touched Florida soil in the vicinity of 
Tampa Bay. And the natives about Tampa Bay 
were hostile with memories of De Soto. 

There were empty huts nearby and a back- 
ground of forest in which it seemed nothing stirred. 
Fray Diego went ashore and climbed a tree at 
some distance from the beach. Immediately a 
score of Indiaias emerged from the forest. Fray 



FLORIDA 125 

Luis, despite the pilot's warnings, with Magdalena 
and an oblate named Fuentes, hurried after Diego, 
through water to their waists. "Our Lord knows 
what haste I made lest they should slay the monk 
before hearing what we were about," Fray Luis 
writes. He paused to fall on his knees and pray for 
grace and divine help, ere he climbed the bank. 
Then he took out of his sleeves some of the trinkets 
he had brought; because, he writes, "deeds are 
love, and gifts shatter rocks."" After these gifts, 
the natives were willing that the friars and Magda- 
lena should kneel among them reciting the litanies ; 
and, to Fray Luis's joy, they also knelt and ap- 
peared pleased with the prayers and the rosaries. 
They seemed so friendly, indeed, that Fray Luis 
permitted Fray Diego, Fuentes, and Magdalena 
to remain with them and to go on a day and a half's 
journey by land to a good harbor of which the 
Indians had told them. He and Fray Gregorio 
returned to the ship. 

It took the pilot eight days to find the new har- 
bor and eight more to enter it. It was on the feast 
of Corpus Christi that the ship dropped anchor. 
Fray Luis and Fray Juan landed and said Mass. 
To their apprehension they saw no signs of Fray 

* Lowery, Spanish Settlements, p. 420. 



126 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Diego and Fuentes, nor of Indians. On the next 
day as they searched, an Indian came out of the 
woods carrying, in token of peace, a rod topped 
with white palm leaves; and he appeared to assure 
Fray Luis that Fray Diego and his companions 
were safe and would be brought to him. On the 
next day as Fray Luis, with Fray Juan and Fray 
Gregorio, rowed towards the shore the natives 
waded to meet them bringing fish and skins to 
trade for trinkets. One savage would take nothing 
but a little wooden cross which he kissed as he 
had seen the monks do — much to the delight of 
Fray Luis. If the pious monk's joy at this incident 
was dimmed a few moments later, when he waded 
inshore and discovered Magdalena naked among 
the tribeswomen, it kindled again at her assurance 
that Diego and Fuentes were safe in the cacique's 
house. How little truth was in her words Fray 
Luis learned when he returned to the ship. There 
he found a Spaniard, once a soldier of De Soto's 
army, who had been enslaved by the Indians of 
this tribe. This man informed him that the In- 
dians had already slain Fray Diego and the oblate 
Fuentes; he had held Diego's scalp in his hands. 

To pleas that he forsake his mission and sail 
away to safer shores, Fray Luis had but one answer. 



FLORIDA 127 

Where his comrades in the faith, acting under his 
orders, had fallen, there would he remain. Though 
storms prevented him from landing for two days, 
he refused to accept the assertions of his shipmates 
— that the storms were sent by God to keep 
him from a death among savages. And, at last, 
through the lashing and roaring of sea and wind, 
he came again to shore. Armed natives painted 
for war could be seen grouped on the bank above 
the slope to the beach. " For the love of God wait 
a little; do not land," Fray Gregorio entreated. 
But Fray Luis had already leaped into the water. 
He turned back once, on reaching the beach, but 
it was to call to Gregorio or Juan to bring to him 
a small cross he had forgotten. When Gregorio 
cried, "Father, for mercy's sake, will not your 
reverence come for it, as there is no one here who 
will take it to you," Fray Luis went on towards 
the hill. ' At its foot he knelt in prayer for a few 
moments, then began the ascent. Midway the 
Indians closed about him, swinging their clubs. 
He cried out once, loudly, before their blows struck 
him down. Those in the boat heard his cry, and 
saw the savages clubbing and slashing at his body 
as they thrust it down the hill. Then a shower of 

' Lowery, Spanish Settlements, p. 425. 



128 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

arrows falling upon their boat made them pull 
away in haste to the ship. The next day the 
vessel set sail and, three weeks later, anchored off 
Vera Cruz. 

Philip II had come to the throne the master of 
Europe. His father, Charles V, had been not only 
sovereign ruler of Spain, of the Netherlands, of 
Naples, of a part of central Italy, of Navarre, and 
Emperor of Germany by election, but he had hoped 
to become master of England also and to leave in 
his heir's hands a world all Spanish- and all Catho- 
lic. Philip II inherited his father's power and his 
father's dream. If his natural abilities were less, 
his obstinacy and his zeal were greater. He had 
seen the march of Spanish power not unattended 
by affronting incidents. In 1520 a monk named 
Luther had defied Philip's father, the Emperor, 
to his face. The Reformation was spreading. Hu- 
guenots were powerful in the domestic politics 
of France; and France was threatening Spain's 
American possessions. Her fishermen had passed 
yearly in increasing numbers between the Banks 
of Newfoundland and their home ports. And a 
mariner of several cross-sea voyages, one Jacques 
Cartier, had discovered the St. Lawrence River and 



EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR OF CHURCH AT SANTA 
CRUZ, NEW MEXICO 

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130 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

and Havana sailed past Florida through the Ba- 
hama Channel, which Ponce de Leon had dis- 
covered, and on to the Azores and Spain. The 
channel was not only the favorite hunting plat 3 of 
pirates — so that the Spanish treasure ship? no 
longer dared go singly but now combined for pro- 
tection; it was also the home of storms. The fury 
of its winds had already driven too many vessels 
laden with gold upon the Florida coast, where as 
yet there were no ports of succor. Cargoes had 
thus been wholly lost, and sailors and passengers 
murdered by the savages. To these dangers was 
added the fear that the French designed to plant a 
colony on the Florida coast near the channel, so that 
they might seize Spanish vessels in case of war, for 
not one could pass without their seeing it. 

So, on Philip's order. Viceroy Velasco bestirxi d 
himself to raise a colony, not only for Coosa bit 
for some other point in Florida. The other point 
selected was Santa Elena, now Port Royal, Sou- h 
Carolina. When all was ready, the company com- 
prised no less than fifteen hundred persons. Of 
the twelve captains in the force, six had been 
with De Soto. In the party there were Coos*, 
women who had followed the Spaniards to Mexico. 
They were now homeward bound. At the head 



FLORIDA 131 

of the colony went Tristan de Luna y Arellano, 
the same Don Tristan who had been Corona- 
do's second in command in the Cibola enterprise 
eighteen years before. The departure of the ex- 
pedition was celebrated with great pomp. Velasco 
himself crossed the mountains to Vera Cruz to see 
it off. 

But this expedition was to be another record of 
disaster and failure. Arellano brought his fleet 
to anchor in Pensacola Bay; and thence dispatched 
three vessels for Santa Elena. Before his supplies 
were unloaded, a tremendous hurricane swept the 
Bay and destroyed most of his ships with great 
loss of life. So violent was the storm that it 
tossed one vessel, like a nutshell, upon the green 
shore. Some of the terror-struck soldiers saw the 
shrieking demons of Hell striding the low, racing, 
black clouds. The outguards of the storm at- 
tacked the three ships bound for the Carolina 
coast and drove them south, so that they returned 
to Mexico by way of Cuba. 

The survivors at Pensacola Bay were soon in 
straits for food. So Arellano, leaving a garrison 
on the coast, sent about a thousand of his colonists 
— men, women, and children — to Santa Cruz 
de Nanipacna, forty leagues inland on a large 



132 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

river, probably in Monroe County, Alabama. But 
these colonists in the fruitful land were like the 
seventeen-year locusts; they ate everything from 
the Indians' stores of maize and beans to palm- 
shoots, acorns, and grass seeds — but produced 
nothing. And soon an exploring band of three 
hundred was sent on towards famed Coosa in 
search of more food. They reached it after a 
hundred days of weary marching over De Soto's 
old trail. Though the natives had small reason 
to love De Soto's countrymen, they treated the 
Spaniards well and fed them bountifully all sum- 
mer. Twelve men, sent back to Nanipacna with 
reports, reached that place at last, to find only a 
deserted camp and a letter saying that the famished 
colony had returned to Pensacola. When Arel- 
lano wished to go to Coosa to see for himself if it 
were suitable for a colony, his people mutinied. 
The malcontents sent a spurious order to the 
explorers at Coosa to return; and in November, 
1560, after more than a year in the interior, the 
little band joined the main body at Pensacola. 

Two ships, which Arellano had sent home for 
aid, reached Mexico safely. The Viceroy immedi- 
ately sent provisions for the colonists and a new 
leader, Angel de Villafane, to replace Arellano and 



FLORIDA 133 

to enjoy those high-sounding but, so far, empty titles 
bestowed upon the successive Governors of Florida. 
Villafane's orders were to move the colonists to 
Santa Elena. Pensacola was too far westward for 
Philip's chief purpose; the most important matter 
was to establish a colony on the Atlantic sea- 
board where it could keep a watchful eye on the 
French, should they venture too far south of Car- 
tier's river. Fray Gregorio de Beteta, who had 
been with Fray Luis Cancer of martyr fame, ac- 
companied Villafane in the hope that the natives 
of Carolina would prove less recalcitrant than 
those about Tampa Bay. Villafane provisioned 
the garrison at Pensacola and then set sail for 
Santa Elena. At Havana many of his followers 
deserted him; but, in May, with the residue, he 
reached the Carolina coast. He explored as far as 
Cape Hatteras, but found no site which he con- 
sidered suitable for colonization. So he abandoned 
the project and returned to Espanola in July, 1561. 
A ship was soon dispatched to remove the garrison 
left at Pensacola. 

The failure of the Spaniards thus far to effect a 
settlement on the coast of the Atlantic mainland of 
North America is readily explicable. In the is- 
lands, in Mexico, and South America, the Spaniards 



134 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

flourished because of the precious metals and the 
docihty of the natives. On the northern main- 
land they found no mines, and the Indians would 
not submit to enslavement. They traversed a rich 
game country and great tracts of fertile soil 
which, later, the English settler's rifle and plow 
were to make sustaining and secure to the English 
race. But the Spaniards, accustomed in America 
to living off the supplies and labor of submissive 
natives, were not allured by the prospect of taming 
tall Creek warriors, or of tilling the soil and hunt- 
ing game to maintain themselves in the wilderness. 
They had astounding enterprise and courage for 
any rainbow trail that promised a pot of gold at the 
end of it, but little for manual labor. 

When news of Villafane's failure reached Spain, 
Philip decided against any further attempts to 
colonize Florida for the time being. He was re- 
assured, as to France, because the French as yet 
had not made any firm foothold on American soil. 
There seemed little to alarm him in the steady 
increase of their fishing vessels, alongside those of 
Spain, in Newfoundland waters, or in the small 
trade in the furs the fishermen were bringing home 
yearly. He could not foresee that not the pot of 
gold but the beaver was to lead to the solution of 



FLORIDA 135 

the Northern Mystery and to spread colonies from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. Moreover, thought 
the King, where Spaniards had failed, French- 
men could not succeed. So, in September, 1561, 
Philip issued his declaration with regard to the 
northern coast. It is interesting to note that he was 
largely influenced to this decision by the advice of 
Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who was very shortly 
to change both his own mind and Philip's. But no 
doubt he relied more on the treaty signed in 1559 
between himself and Henry II of France, under 
which France surrendered booty from Spanish 
ships and ports, said — perhaps somewhat extrava- 
gantly — to equal in value a third of the kingdom; 
and on his own marriage by proxy in the same 
year to the French princess Elizabeth, daughter of 
Catherine de' Medici. 

But Philip's policy of hands off Florida was des- 
tined to speedy reversal, to meet the exigency of 
a new intrusion into Spanish domains. A year 
had not passed when Jean Ribaut of Dieppe led a 
colony of French Huguenots to Port Royal, South 
Carolina, the very Santa Elena which Villafane, 
less than a year before, had tried to occupy for 
Spain. Ribaut's enterprise dismally failed, it is 
true, but two years later Coligny, Admiral of 



136 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

France, a Huguenot, and the uncompromising 
foe of Spain, sent a second colony under Rene 
de Laudonniere. And a French settlement was 
founded, protected by Fort Caroline, on St. John's 
River, in the land of which Ponce de Leon had 
taken solemn possession for Spain. 

The enthusiastic reports made by these French 
pioneers are proof that not alone the Spanish 
fancy ran astray in the face of tales that were 
told in the American wilds. Ribaut heard of the 
Seven Cities of Cibola; but Laudonniere went him 
one better, for one of his scouts, while exploring 
the country round about, actually saw and con- 
versed with men who had drunk at the Fountain of 
Youth, and had already comfortably passed their 
first quarter of a thousand years. 

But Laudonniere's artistic sense did not fit him 
to lead a colony made up chiefly of ex-soldiers — 
and including both Huguenots and Catholics, who 
had so recently been in armed strife on their home 
soil. Men who tilled the ground had been omitted 
from the roster; the artisans could not turn farmers 
on the instant; and the soldiers had no inclination 
to beat their swords into plowshares so long as 
Spanish treasure ships sailed the Bahama Chan- 
nel. Laudonniere offended the Indians nearby by 



FLORIDA 137 

trying to make friends with their foes as well and 
forcing them to set free some captives, and so was 
presently in straits for food. Some of his men 
mutinied, seized two barques, and went out on a 
pirate raid. One of their vessels with thirty- three 
men aboard was captured by the Spaniards and 
the men hanged — in return for their seizure of a 
Spanish ship and the killing of a judge aboard of 
her. The other barque returned to Fort Caroline 
and Laudonniere had the ringleaders executed. 
Only ten days' supply of food was left, when one 
morning, like gulls rising against the sun, four 
strange sails fluttered over the horizon. Instead of 
Spaniards bent on war, the visitor, who sailed his 
fleet into the river's mouth, proved to be the 
English sea-dog, John Hawkins. Master Haw- 
kins had been marketing a cargo of Guinea Coast 
blacks in the islands where, by a suggestive dis- 
play of swords and arquebuses, he had forced the 
Spaniards to meet his prices and to give him 
a " testimoniall of his good behauior" while in 
their ports. 

Hawkins fed and wined the French settlers and 
offered to carry them away safely to French soil. 
But Laudonniere, not knowing whether France 
was at peace or war with England, was afraid to 



138 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

trust the generous pirate. So far from resent- 
ing Laudonniere's suspicions, Hawkins, no doubt 
thinking that, in like circumstances, he would be 
equally cautious, agreed to sell a vessel at what- 
ever price the Frenchman should name. And he 
threw into the bargain provisions and fifty pairs of 
shoes, so that Laudonniere, in his memoir, descants 
much upon this "good and charitable man." 

Grave reports of Laudonniere's mismanagement 
reached Coligny and decided him to send Jean 
Ribaut again to take command. Ribaut, with his 
son Jacques and three hundred more colonists, 
chiefly soldiers, set sail on May 23, 1565. On the 
eve of departure Ribaut received a letter from 
Coligny, saying that a certain Don Pedro Menen- 
dez was leaving Spain for the coast of "New 
France" — such the French declared to be the 
name of the coast south of the St. Lawrence. 
Coligny sternly counseled Ribaut not to suflFer 
Menendez to "encroach" upon him "no more than 
he would that you should encroach upon him." 

If the settlement at Port Royal had been a 
disquieting intrusion, Fort Caroline, under the very 
nose of Havana and on the path of the treas- 
ure fleets, was an imminent menace to New Spain. 
Its import was plainly stated in the reports to 



FLORIDA 139 

Philip from Mexico. *'The sum of all that can be 
said in the matter, is that they put the Indies in a 
crucible, for we are compelled to pass in front of 
their port, and with the greatest ease they can 
sally out with their armadas to seek us, and easi- 
ly return home when it suits them." In urging 
action before Coligny could send Ribaut to relieve 
the colonists, the same report continued: "seeing 
that they are Lutherans ... it is not needful to 
leave a man alive, but to inflict an exemplary 
punishment, that they may remember it forever."^ 
While French depredations had been protested by 
Philip's envoy to France, the matter had not been 
pushed to a rupture, because Philip desired to 
enlist the aid of Catherine. Catherine also was 
forced to temporize. She needed Philip's support 
to maintain her position of power in France be- 
tween Catholic Leaguer and Huguenot, but she 
dared not, for his friendship, go so far as to inter- 
fere with Coligny 's designs on Florida, lest even the 
French Catholics turn against her; for they too had 
caught the Admiral's vision of a France once more 
great, rich, and glorious. It suited her therefore 
to make answer that the French ships were bound 
for a country discovered by France and known as 

* Lowery, Florida, p. 105. 



140 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

the Terre des Bretons and would in no way molest 
the territories of Spain! 

Ribaut reached Fort Caroline while Laudonniere 
and his men were still there. With the arrival of 
his ships, bringing three hundred more colonists, 
plans for evacuation were abandoned. 

To expel and castigate the French and to plant 
his own power solidly in Florida, Philip had at last 
picked a man who would not fail. Menendez was 
already a sea-soldier of note and had rendered 
signal and distinguished services to the Crown. 
He was a nobleman of the Asturias, where "the 
earth and sky bear men who are honest, not 
tricksters, truthful, not babblers, most faithful to 
the King, generous, friendly, light-hearted, and 
merry, daring, and warlike." During the recent 
wars, as a naval officer, he had fought the French; 
and later, off his home coasts and off the Canaries, 
he had defeated French pirate ships. 

Menendez's contract was a typical conquistador's 
agreement. His chance to serve the King was a 
certainty. His profits were a gamble. The title 
of adelantado of Florida granted him was made 
hereditary. His salary of two thousand ducats 
yearly was to be collected from rents and products 



FLORIDA 141 

of the colony. He was given a grant of land 
twenty -five miles square, with the title of Marquis, 
and two fisheries — one of pearls — wherever he 
should select them. He was to have a few ships of 
his own to trade with some of the islands and was 
absolved from certain import and export duties, 
and for five years he was to retain whatever spoils 
he found aboard the pirate vessels he captured. 
Apart from a loan from Philip of fifteen thousand 
ducats, which he bound himself to repay, he was 
to bear all the expenses of the venture — about 
$1,800,000. His fleet was to contain, besides the 
San Pelayo of six hundred tons, six sloops of fifty 
tons each and four smaller vessels for use in the 
shallow waters of Florida. His colonists were to 
number five hundred, of which one hundred must 
be soldiers, one hundred sailors, and the rest ar- 
tisans, oflSicials, and farmers; and two hundred of 
them must be married. He was to take four 
Jesuit priests and ten or twelve friars. He was to 
parcel out the land to settlers and to build two 
towns, each to contain one hundred citizens and to 
be protected by a fort. He was also to take about 
five hundred negro slaves, half of whom were to be 
women. Above all he was to see that none of his 
colonists were Jews or secret heretics. And he 



142 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

was to drive out the French settlers "by what 
means you see fit." He must also make a detailed 
report on the Atlantic coast from the Florida Keys 
to Newfoundland. The previous success of Me- 
nendez as a chastiser of pirates may be indicated by 
his possession of oearly two million dollars to spend 
on this colony. When his entire company was 
raised, it comprised 2646 persons, "not mendicants 
and vagabonds . . . but of the best horsemen of 
Asturias, Galicia, and Vizcaya," "trustworthy 
persons, for the security of the enterprise." 

Menendez sailed from Cadiz on July 29, 1565. 
In the islands thirty of his men and three priests 
deserted; but neither this circumstance nor the 
non-arrival of half his ships, which were delayed by 
storms, prevented him from continuing at once for 
Florida. On the 28th of August he dropped anchor 
in a harbor about the mouth of a river and gave to 
it the name of the saint on whose festival he had 
discovered it — Saint Augustine (San Agustin) . 

Seven days later he went up the coast, looking 
for the French. In the afternoon he came upon 
four of Ribaut's ships lying outside the bar at 
St. John's River. Menendez, ignoring the French 
fire, which was aimed too high to do any damage, 
led his vessels in among the foe's. 



FLORIDA 143 

*' Gentlemen, from where does this fleet come?" 
he demanded, as we are told, "very courteously." 

"From France," came the answer from Ribaut's 
flagship. 

"What are you doing here.''" 

"Bringing infantry, artillery, and supplies for a 
fort which the King of France has in this country, 
and for others which he is going to make." 

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?" 

"Lutherans, and our general is Jean Ribaut." 

In answer to like questions from the French 
ship, Menendez made reply: "I am the General; 
my name is Pedro Menendez de Aviles. This is 
the armada of the King of Spain, who has sent me 
to this coast and country to burn and hang the 
Lutheran French who should be found there, and 
in the morning I will board your ships; and if I 
find any Catholics they will be well treated."' 

In the pause which followed this exchange of 
courtesies — "a stillness such as I have never 
heard since I came to the world," says the Spanish 
chaplain — the French cut their cables and, pass- 
ing through the midst of the Spanish fleet, made 
off to sea. Menendez gave chase. But the French 

' This conversation is quoted by Lowery in Florida, pp. 156- 
157. 



144 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

ships were too swift for him. So at dawn he re- 
turned to the river's mouth. But, seeing the 
three other French vessels within the bar and 
soldiers massed on the bank, he withdrew and 
sailed back to St. Augustine. Here he began the 
fortification of a large Indian house, dug a trench 
about it, and bulwarked it with logs and earth. 
This converted Indian dwelling was the beginning 
of the settlement of St. Augustine. The work fin- 
ished and the last of the colonists and supplies land- 
ed, Menendez took formal possession. From a dis- 
tance the French ships watched the landing of the 
Spanish troops; then made off to St. John's River. 
On arrival at Fort Caroline Ribaut gathered 
his vessels together — except his son's, which had 
not returned — and, taking aboard four hundred 
soldiers, set out again, to attack St. Augustine. 
He left only two hundred and forty men at Fort 
Caroline; and many of them were ill. His plans 
were made against the advice of Laudonniere, 
left in command of the fort, who urged the dan- 
ger of his situation should contrary winds drive 
Ribaut's ships out to sea and the Spaniards make 
an attack by land. These forebodings were pro- 
phetic. A terrible wind arose which blew for days. 
And Menendez, guided by Indians and a French 



FLORIDA 145 

prisoner he had picked up in the islands, marched 
overland upon Fort Caroline. 

On the 20th of September just before daybreak 
Menendez reached the fort. Most of the men 
inside were asleep. The trumpeter on the bastion 
had barely sounded the alarm before the Spaniards 
were inside the walls. The French had no time 
to don clothes or armor. In their shirts or naked 
they seized their swords and rushed out into the 
gray light of the court. Within an hour one 
hundred and thirty-two French had been killed, 
and half a dozen men and fifty women and children 
captured. The remaining French, many of them 
wounded, escaped to the woods; among them was 
Laudonniere. It was not a fight but a massacre. 
Even the very sick were dragged out and slain. 
One woman who escaped had a dagger wound in 
her breast; though Menendez had given orders to 
spare the women and children, fearing "that our 
Lord would punish me, if I acted towards them 
with cruelty." 

Twenty-six French, including Laudonniere, were 
rescued by the ships of Jacques Ribaut and ulti- 
mately reached France. Some twenty more, too 
badly hurt to travel fast, were discovered by the 
men sent out by Menendez to beat the brush 



146 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

thoroughly for fugitives and run through with 
swords. One lone man, a belated Cabeza de Vaca, 
made his way across the country from tribe to 
tribe and came out at Panuco. After a brief rest 
at the post, which he rechristened Fort San Mateo, 
Menendez marched swiftly back to St. Augustine. 
He learned presently that one hundred and forty 
men from two French ships wrecked by the storm 
were nearby. They had lost two hundred of their 
comrades, drowned, killed, or captured by savages ; 
they themselves were destitute. Menendez made 
a quick march to the spot. When the castaways 
pleaded that their lives be spared until the arrival 
of a French ship to take them home, Menendez 
answered that he was "waging a war of fire and 
blood against all who came to settle these parts 
and plant in them their evil Lutheran sect. . . . 
For this reason I would not grant them a safe 
passage, but would sooner follow them by sea and 
land until I had taken their lives."' 

An offer of five thousand ducats for their lives 
met with the ambiguous reply that mercy would 
be shown for its own sake and not for price. So 
read the Spanish reports of this event. French 
reports state that Menendez, to induce the one 

' Ruidiaz, La Florida, vol. II, p. 89. 



FLORIDA 147 

hundred and forty men to surrender themselves, 
their arms, and ammunition without a blow, gave 
his oath to spare their lives and to send them to 
France. However that may be, they surrendered. 
The chaplain discovered ten Catholics among them 
and these were set apart. The remaining one hun- 
dred and thirty were given food and drink and were 
then told that — as a precaution because of their 
numbers — they must consent to have their hands 
bound behind them on the march to St. Augustine. 
Menendez ordered a meal prepared for the prison- 
ers, gave his final instructions regarding them to 
the officers in charge, and went on ahead. A 
gunshot's distance off, beyond a hummock, he 
paused long enough to draw a line with his spear 
in the white sand of the flat. Then he went on. 
The heavy dusk from the sea was massing swiftly 
behind the Frenchmen, and the last faint flush 
of the afterglow was fading from the western 
sky, when they came up abreast of the spear- 
line in the sand. There the Spaniards fell upon 
them, slew, and decapitated them. The stain on 
the ground where this bloody scene was enacted 
is ineradicable, and after three and a half cen- 
turies the place is still known as Las Matanzas 
(The Massacre) . 



148 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Shortly after Menendez had reached St. Augus- 
tine, Indians informed him that Jean Ribaut and 
two hundred men were at Matanzas, having been 
cut oflF there, as the other Frenchmen had been, by 
the inlet, as they were attempting to reach Fort 
Caroline by land. Menendez set out immediately. 
Once more were the same ceremonies repeated; 
and Ribaut and his two hundred men were induced 
to surrender. When, with their hands bound, they 
were halted at the spear-line, now more clearly 
indicated by the heap of corpses along it, they 
were asked: "Are you Catholics or Lutherans, 
and are there any who wish to confess?" Seven- 
teen Catholics were found and set aside. But 
Ribaut, the staunch Huguenot mariner of Dieppe, 
had been too long familiar with the menace of 
death to recant because a dagger was poised over 
his entrails. He answered for himself and the 
rest, saying that a score of years of life were a 
small matter, for "from earth we came and unto 
earth we return." Then he recited passages from 
Psalm cxxxii. One of Menendez's captains thrust 
his dagger into Ribaut's bowels, and Meras, the 
adelaniadds brother-in-law, drove his pike through 
his breast; then they hacked off his head. 

"I put Jean Ribaut and all the rest of them to the 



FLORIDA 149 

knife," Menendez wrote to Philip, "judging it to 
be necessary to the service of the Lord Our God, 
and of Your Majesty. And I think it a very great 
fortune that this man be dead ... he could do 
more in one year than another in ten; for he was 
the most experienced sailor and corsair known, 
very skillful in this navigation of the Indies and of 
the Florida Coast."' 

Some there were, of course, among his officers at 
St. Augustine, and among the nobility in Spain, 
who condemned Menendez for his cruelty and for 
slaying the captives after having given his oath 
for their safety. But Barrientos, a contemporary 
historian, holds that he was "very merciful" to 
them for he could "legally have burnt them alive 
. . . He killed them, I think, rather by divine 
inspiration." And Philip's comment, scribbled by 
his pen on the back of Menendez 's dispatch, was: 
"As to those he has killed he has done well, 
and as to those he has saved, they shall be sent to 
the galleys."^ And he wrote to Menendez, "We 
hold that we have been well served." 

The name of Menendez is popularly associated 
in America almost solely with this inhuman epi- 
sode. But the expulsion of the French was only an 

' Lowery, Florida, p. 200. ^ Lowery, Florida, p. 206. 



150 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

incident in a work covering nearly ten years, dur- 
ing which time Menendez proved himself an able 
and constructive administrator, as well as a vigor- 
ous soldier, and laid the foundation of a Spanish 
colony on the northern mainland which endured. 
Menendez was a dreamer, as are all men of 
vision, and he pictured a great future for his 
Florida — which to him meant the whole of north- 
eastern America. He would fortify the Peninsula 
to prevent any foreigner from gaining control of 
the Bahama Channel, that highway of the precious 
treasure fleets; he would ascend the Atlantic coast 
and occupy Santa Elena, where the French had 
intruded, and the Bay of Santa Maria (Chesapeake 
Bay), for, since one of its arms was perhaps the 
long-sought northern passage, the bay might prove 
to be the highway to the Moluccas, much en- 
dangered now by the activities of the French. 
The other extremity, on the Pacific, it was hoped, 
might be discovered by Legazpi, who shortly before 
had started on his way to conquer the Philip- 
pine Islands. This accomplished, then away with 
France and her Bacallaos (St. Lawrence) River, 
which, after all, Cartier and Roberval had found 
untenable. To approach Mexico, Menendez would 
occupy Appalachee Bay, and plant a colony at 



FLORIDA 151 

Coosa, "at the foot of the mountains which come 
from the mines of Zacatecas and San Martin," 
where Francisco de Ibarra was at this very moment 
engaged in carving out the Kingdom of New Bis- 
cay. Finally, Menendez had great hopes of eco- 
nomic prosperity, for silkworms, vineyards, mines, 
pearls, sugar plantations, wheat and rice fields, 
herds of cattle, salines, ship timber, and pitch 
would make Florida not only self-supporting but 
richer "than New Spain or even Peru." 

Vast and unified in vision were these contempo- 
raneous projects of Philip and his men, embrac- 
ing the two oceans and reaching from Spain to the 
Philippine Islands. The tasks of Menendez in 
La Florida, Ibarra in New Biscay, and Legaspi 
in the Philippines were all but parts of one great 
whole, and Florida, said Menendez, with a twen- 
tieth-century contempt for distance and a Spanish 
disregard of time, "is but a suburb of Spain, for 
it does not take more than forty days' sailing to 
come here, and usually as many more to return." 

Within two years Menendez had established a 
line of posts between Tampa Bay and Santa Elena 
(Port Royal) and had made an attempt to colon- 
ize Virginia. But this work had not been done 
without setbacks. Disease and the adventurer's 



152 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

dislike of manual labor — the same enemies that 
so nearly wrecked the English settlement at James- 
town several decades later — played their part in 
hampering the growth of the Florida settlements. 
When the colonies might perhaps have been in a 
degree self-supporting, it was still necessary to 
import all their supplies. Over a hundred colonists 
died at St. Augustine and San Mateo (Fort Caro- 
line); the attitude of others was fairly expressed 
in the statement of some deserters, that they had 
not come there to plow and plant but to find 
riches and, since no riches were to be found, they 
would no longer live in Florida "like beasts." 
From the principal settlements over three hundred 
men absconded; one hundred and thirty belonging 
to St. Augustine seized a supply ship and made off 
in it. But Menendez's forces were strengthened 
by over a thousand colonists from Spain. The 
foothold in Florida had been won. 

Meanwhile Menendez had turned to inland 
exploration. While at Santa Elena in 1566, he 
sent Juan Pardo with twenty-five men "to dis- 
cover and conquer the interior country from 
there to Mexico." Menendez aimed to join 
hands with the advance guard of pioneers in 
New Biscay. Going northward through Orista, 



FLORIDA 153 

at forty leagues Pardo apparently struck the 
Cambahee River. Turning west he visited Cufi- 
tachiqui, where De Soto had dallied with the 
"queen" a quarter century before. A few days 
later he was at Juala, on a stream near the foot T^iiT-i;., 
of the Alleghanies. The mountain being covered 
with snow, he could not proceed, so he built a 
stockade, called Fort San Juan, and left there a 
garrison under Sergeant Boyano. Going east to ■pj 
Guatare (Wateree), he left there a priest and four f 
soldiers, and returned by a direct route to Santa 
Elena. He had thus extended the work of De 
Soto by exploring a large part of South Carolina 
and adding considerably to the knowledge of 
North Carolina. 

Conversion of the natives was an essential part 
of Menendez's scheme to pacify and hold the coun- 
try. He had, as yet, no missionaries; so he de- 
tailed some of his soldiers to the work, and, in 
1566, by much urging, he induced Philip to equip 
and send three Jesuits to Florida. The three were 
Father Martinez, Father Rogel, and Brother Villa- 
real. Their mission began in disaster. Father 
Martinez was killed by Indians and the other two 
withdrew temporarily to the West Indies. On their 
return, Menendez established Father Rogel with a 



154 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

garrison of fifty soldiers at San Antonio, on Charlotte 
Bay, in the territory of the cacique Carlos, and 
Brother Villareal, also with a garrison, at Tegesta 
on the Miami River mouth at Biscayne Bay. 

Menendez had now established three permanent 
settlements on the Atlantic coast — St. Augustine 
and San Mateo in Florida and Santa Elena in South 
Carolina; and he had garrisoned forts at Guale 
in northern Georgia, at Tampa and Charlotte Bays 
on the west coast of the peninsula, and at Biscayne 
Bay and the St. Lucie River on the east coast. 
From these points Spaniards would now command 
the routes of the treasure fleets from the West 
Indies and from Vera Cruz. He had also pro- 
jected a settlement at Chesapeake Bay, which was 
not fated to endure. 

In May, 1567, after twenty months of continu- 
ous activity, Menendez went to Spain. There he 
was acclaimed as a hero. Philip made him Captain- 
General of the West, with command of a large fleet 
to secure the route to the West Indies, appointed 
him Governor of Cuba, and created him Knight 
Commander of the Holy Cross of Zarza, of the 
order of Santiago. It was said that Menendez was 
greatly disappointed that his reward consisted of 
so many sonorous words and of so little substance. 



FLORIDA 155 

Menendez had reached his zenith. The story 
of his later successes is varied with disasters. 

In France, among all parties, the news of the 
massacre of Ribaut's colony had kindled fury 
against the Spaniards. Even to Catherine, in 
that hour of humiliation, the slaughtered men 
in Florida were not Huguenots but French. She 
rejected Philip's insinuating suggestions to make 
Coligny the scapegoat, avowed her own responsi- 
bility, and protested bitterly the effrontery and 
cruelty of Philip's agent in murdering her subjects. 
But her position in divided France was such that 
Philip had the whip hand, and he couched his 
answers in terms to make her feel it. She dared 
not go beyond high words, lest he publish her as an 
enemy of her own Church and, by some sudden 
stroke at her or her invahd son, hasten the end 
at which all his intrigues in her kingdom aimed, 
namely, the complete subservience of France to 
the Spanish Crown. 

Catherine could not avenge the wrong; but 
Dominique de Gourgues could. Gourgues was 
an ex-soldier and a citizen of good family; his 
parents were Catholics and he is not known to 
have been a Protestant. He had been captured 
in war by the Spaniards and had been forced 



156 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

to serve as a galley slave. Now to his own 
grievance was added that of his nation; and he 
chose to avenge both. It is possible that he did 
not have the aid of the Queen and Coligny in 
raising his expedition — ostensibly to engage in 
the slave trade — but quite probable that he did. 
He timed his stroke to fall during the absence of 
Menendez in Spain. With one hundred and eighty 
men he went out in August, 1567, and spent the 
winter trading in the West Indies. Early next year 
he proceeded to Florida, landed quietly near St. 
John's River and made an alliance with Chief 
Saturiba, who was hostile to the Spaniards but an 
old friend of the French. Saturiba received him 
with demonstrations of joy, called his secondary 
chiefs to a war council, and presented Gourgues 
with a French lad whom his tribe had succored 
and concealed from the Spaniards since the time 
of Ribaut. 

His force augmented by Saturiba's warriors, 
Gourgues marched stealthily upon San Mateo. 
The Spaniards in the outpost blockhouses had 
just dined "and were still picking their teeth" 
when Gourgues's cry rang out: 

"Yonder are the thieves who have stolen this 
land from our King. Yonder are the murderers 



FLORIDA 157 

who have massacred our French. On! On! Let 
us avenge our King! Let us show that we are 
Frenchmen!" 

The garrison in the first blockhouse, sixty in 
all, were killed or captured. The men in the 
second blockhouse met the same fate; and the 
French pushed on towards San Mateo fort itself, 
their fury having been increased by the sight of 
French cannon on the blockhouses — reminders of 
Fort Caroline. The Spaniards at San Mateo 
had received warning. A number had made off 
towards St. Augustine; the remaining garrison 
opened artillery fire upon the French. The trees 
screened the Indian allies; and the Spaniards, in 
making a sortie, were caught between the two 
forces. *'As many as possible were taken alive, 
by Captain Gourgues's order, to do to them what 
they had done to the French," says the report. 
The completion of Gourgues's revenge is thus 
related: "They are swung from the branches of the 
same trees on which they had hung the French, 
and in place of the inscription which Pedro Menen- 
dez had put up containing these words in Spanish, 
/ do this not as to Frenchmen but as to Luther- 
ans, Captain Gourgues causes to be inscribed with 
a hot iron on a pine tablet: / do this not as to 



158 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Spaniards nor as to Marranos {secret Jews] hut as 
to traitors, robbers, and murderers.^' ^ 

Gourgues now turned homeward. On the way 
he captured three Spanish treasure ships, threw 
their crews overboard, and took their contents of 
gold, pearls, merchandise, and arms. With a 
hideous vindictiveness on land and water had he 
repaid Spaniards for the massacre of his country- 
men on Florida soil and for his own degradation 
as a slave in their galleys on the sea. And he, 
too, like Menendez, stepping red-handed upon his 
native shores, was acclaimed as a hero. 

Troubles now came fast upon the Spaniards in 
Florida. Indians rose and massacred the soldiers 
at Tampa Bay. The garrison at San Antonio was 
compelled by hunger and the hostility of the na- 
tives to withdraw to St. Augustine. In rapid suc- 
cession, the interior posts established by Pardo 
and Boyano were destroyed by the Indians, or 
abandoned to save provisions. By 1570 Indian 
rancor and shortage of food had forced numbers of 
the colonists to leave the country. 

' Lowery, Florida, p. 333. There seems to be no proof that 
Men€ndez had hanged Frenchmen at Fort Caroline with this 
inscription over them; but the report that he had done so was 
believed in France. Spanish accounts do not mention it. 



FLORIDA 159 

The missionaries succeeded little better than 
the soldiers; though Menendez had sent out four- 
teen more Jesuits from Spain, in 1568, under 
Father Juan Bautista de Segura. Father Rogel, 
driven from San Antonio and then from Santa 
Elena, returned to Havana. Father Sedeno and 
some five companions went to Guale (Georgia) 
where they labored for a year with some success. 
Brother Domingo translated the catechism into the 
native Guale tongue and Brother Baez compiled a 
grammar, the first written in the United States. Fa- 
ther Rogel went to Santa Elena, where he founded 
a mission at Orista, some five leagues from the set- 
tlement of San Felipe. He succeeded well for sever- 
al months, but finally the Indians became hostile 
and, when the commander levied a tribute of provi- 
sions to feed the hungry settlers, they rebelled, and 
Father Rogel was forced to withdraw to Havana 
(1570) . About the same time and for like reasons 
the missionaries abandoned Guale. 

Though he had failed on the peninsula and on 
the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, Father 
Segura did not give up, but transferred his eflforts 
to Chesapeake Bay, where, with six other Jesu- 
its, he founded a mission at Axacan, perhaps on 
the Rappahannock. But within a few months the 



160 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

fickle Indians turned against them and slew Se- 
gura and his entire band (1571). On his return 
from Spain Menendez went to Chesapeake Bay 
and avenged the death of the missionaries by 
hanging eight Indians to the yardarms of his ship. 
The Jesuits, after the martyrdom of Segura, 
abandoned the field of Florida for Mexico. But, 
in 1573, nine Franciscans began work in this un- 
promising territory. Others came in 1577 and, 
in 1593, twelve more arrived under Father Juan de 
Silva. From their monastery at St. Augustine 
they set forth and founded missions along the 
northern coasts. Fray Pedro Chozas made wide 
explorations inland; and Father Pareja began his 
famous work on the Indian languages. By 1615 
more than twenty mission stations were erected in 
the region today comprised in Florida, Georgia, and 
South Carolina. The story of these Franciscan mis- 
sions, though it is little known, is one of self -sacri- 
fice, religious zeal, and heroism, scarcely excelled by 
that of the Jesuits in Canada or the Franciscans in 
California. It is recorded in the mute but eloquent 
ruins scattered here and there along the Atlantic coast. 

In 1572 Menendez left America. He was first 
of all a seaman; and he was called home to assist 



CALIFORNIA METHOD OF CATCHING CATTLE, WITH 
A DISTANT VIEW OF MISSION OF SAN JOSE 

Lithograph by L. M. Lefevre, from a drawing by Captain W. 
Smyth, R.N. In California, a History, by Alexander Forbes 
(1839). 



.W nifilqKD ^d gniv/aih e moil ,'>T/3loJ .M .J: "^d riqaijtodJi J: ■ 

. «88I) 



t ■■% 




FLORIDA 161 

Philip in the preparation of the great Armada 
which the King was slowly getting ready. But 
Menendez did not live to command the Armada, 
for he died in 1574. His body was carried to the 
Church of St. Nicholas in Aviles and placed in a 
niche on the Gospel side of the altar. His tomb is 
marked with this inscription: "Here lies interred 
the very illustrious cavalier Pedro Men^ de Aviles, 
native of this town, Adelantado of the Provinces of 
Florida, Commander of the Holy Cross of La 
Carca of the Order of Santiago and C? Gen*' of the 
Ocean Sea and of the Catholic Armada which the 
Lord Philip II. assembled against England in the 
year 1574, at Santander, where he died on the 
17th of September of the said year being fifty-five 
years of age.'*^ 

At the time when Menendez returned to Spain, 
Philip's intrigues in France reached their logical 
culmination — in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew 
and the end of Coligny. France, again in the ago- 
nies of civil strife, was no longer a menace. The 
new shadow on his horizon was England — England 
with her growing navy and her Protestant faith: 
and her Queen, who was as expert a politician as 

' Lowery, Florida, p. 384. 



162 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

any man sent by Spain to her court, and more 
subtle then Philip himself. "This woman is pos- 
sessed by a hundred thousand devils," the Spanish 
envoy wrote to his King. During the years while 
England, after the upheavals of Mary's reign, was 
becoming stable and waxing strong, Elizabeth's 
dexterity kept Philip halting from any one of the 
deadly blows he might have struck at her. By 
her brilliant wit and her mendacity she kept him 
pondering when he should have been acting. She 
worked upon his religious zeal and his vanity by 
letting herself be surprised by his envoy with a 
crucifix in her hands, or blushing with a pretty 
confusion over Philip's portraits ; and by these and 
other methods she kept him from bringing his in- 
trigues among her Catholic subjects to a head, 
lessened his support of Mary Stuart, and caused 
him to put off his designs for her own assassination. 
But this play could not go on forever. The pira- 
cies of the English sea-dogs, the honoring by Eliza- 
beth of Francis Drake on his return from loot- 
ing Spanish ships and "taking possession" of the 
North Pacific coast as New Albion, the attempts 
of Raleigh and White to plant colonies in Vir- 
ginia and Guiana, and later the sacking of Santo 
Domingo and Cartagena and the destruction of 



FLORIDA 163 

St. Augustine by Drake, and, finally, the persecu- 
tion of the Jesuits in England, at last spurred Philip 
to combat. By the Pope, who had issued a Bull of 
Deposition against Elizabeth, he had long been 
urged to conquer renegade England; and Mary 
Stuart had bequeathed to him her "rights" as 
sovereign of that kingdom. And Philip had seen 
that his distant colonies could not be defended 
unless he were sole King of the Ocean Sea. 

So the destiny of North America was decided 
on the North Sea, in July, 1588, in the defeat of 
the Spanish Armada by Sir Francis Drake. The 
mastery of the ocean passed from Spain to England. 
The waterways were open now for English colo- 
nists to seek those northern shores which Spain 
had failed to occupy. In time the sparse settle- 
ments in the Spanish province of Florida came to 
be hemmed in on the north by the English colo- 
nies in Georgia and South Carolina and Alabama, 
and stopped on the west by the French colony 
of Louisiana. 

Jamestown, 1607; Charleston, 1670; Savannah, 
1733 : thus the English advanced relentlessly. And 
in 1763, following the Seven Years' War, in which 
Spain fought on the side of France, the English 
expelled Spain from Florida entirely. Spain's 



164 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

recovery of her foothold there during the Ameri- 
can Revolution, and her struggle afterwards to hold 
back the oncoming tide of the now independent 
Anglo-Americans, profited her nothing in the end; 
for in 1819, two hundred and twelve years after 
Jamestown, all that remained to Spain of her old 
province of Florida passed to the United States. 



CHAPTER VI 

NEW MEXICO 

Old Castaneda, who wrote a belated chronicle of 
Coronado's expedition, gave Coronado a black eye 
and at the same time encouraged new flights of 
fancy. He made it appear that for some man of 
destiny the north held prizes. From the resem- 
blance of the Pueblo to the Aztec dwellings the 
region came to be called New Mexico. It was, 
after all, the "otro Mexico," which so many had 
sought. For nearly four decades after Coronado's 
day the Pueblo Indians were not revisited; but, 
during the interval the frontier of settlement in the 
central plateau of Mexico pushed northward, and 
the post of Santa Barbara was set up at the head of 
the Conchos River, which led to the Rio Grande. 
This opened a new highway to New Mexico. 
Coronado's roundabout trail by way of the Pacific 
slope, made dangerous by hostile Indians using 
poisoned arrows, was now no longer necessary. In 

165 



166 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

the course of slave-catching and prospecting raids 
down the Conchos, frontiersmen crossed the trail of 
Cabeza de Vaca and from the Indians heard new 
reports of the Pueblo country. Some one at Santa 
Barbara had a copy of Vaca's Narrativey and 
the marvelous tale of adventure was read again 
with keen attention. To the friars, newly heralded 
Cibola appeared a virgin field in which to save 
souls; to the soldiers and miners, a new world of 
adventure and treasure. 

New Mexico was again the scene of explora- 
tion. But, by the ordinance of 1573, mihtary 
expeditions among the Indians were forbidden, 
and as a consequence any new enterprise must 
go in missionary guise. An expedition was or- 
ganized at Santa Barbara in 1581, led by Fray 
Agustin Rodriguez, with whom went Fray Fran- 
cisco Lopez, Fray Juan de Santa Maria, nine- 
teen Indian servants, and nine soldier-traders. 
The soldiers were led by Francisco Chamuscado, 
"the Singed." They were equipped with ninety 
horses, coats of mail for horse and rider, and six 
hundred cattle, besides sheep, goats, and hogs. 
For barter with the natives they carried merchan- 
dise. While the primary purpose of the stock 
was to provide food on the way, the friars were 



NEW MEXICO 167 

prepared to remain in New Mexico if conditions 
were propitious. 

Leaving Santa Barbara on the 5th of June, the 
party descended the Conchos River to its mouth 
and proceeded up the Rio Grande. They were fol- 
lowed by a retinue of Indians who regarded them 
as children of the sun — so the chronicler thought. 
They passed through thePiros towns and continued 
to the Tiguas above Isleta, and on to the Tanos on 
Santa Fe River. Here Father Santa Maria set out 
alone to carry reports to Mexico, against the wishes 
of his companions, whose fears were justified, for he 
was killed three days later by Indians east of Isleta. 
The two friars and their party continued to Taos, 
near the Colorado line, and crossed to the Buffalo 
Plains, east of the Pecos River. Returning west- 
ward, they were obliged to fight a band of hostile 
natives in the Galisteo valley. Then they crossed 
the Rio Grande and visited the Indian towns of 
x4.coma and Zuni. On the way some of the men, 
boylike, or with an historical sense, carved their 
names on El Morro Cliff, now called Inscription 
Rock, where they are still visible. At Zuni they 
found three Mexicans who had come with Coro- 
nado, and after forty years had nearly forgotten 
their native tongue. Back eastward came the 



168 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

expedition. Rodriguez and Lopez decided to found 
a mission at Puaray, a Tigua town on the Rio 
Grande above Albuquerque, and there, with a few 
servants, the two friars made their abode. The 
soldiers returned to Santa Barbara. Chamuscado, 
the leader, became ill on the way and was carried 
on a litter of hides strung between two horses. 
Before reaching his destination he died. 

Three months later two servants from the mis- 
sion fled to Mexico and reported that Lopez had 
been killed by the Indians. A rescue expeditioji 
was hastened, for Fray Agustin might still be 
alive. But the expedition was too late. On reach- 
ing Puaray it was learned that Fray Agustin also 
had been slain. 

The soldier-traders of this rescue party were led 
by Antonio de Espejo, a merchant of Mexico, and 
Espejo had other business in New Mexico. From 
the Rio Grande he explored northwest to Jemez 
and went to Acoma and Zuiii. Here he left Father 
Beltran, the Franciscan who accompanied him, and 
went on in search of a lake of gold he had heard 
of. Arrived at the Moqui towns, in Arizona, he 
obtained four thousand cotton blankets and saw 
the snake dance performed by the Hopi Indians, 
who still raise cotton and still perform the famous 



NEW MEXICO 169 

dance, usually as a prayer for rain. Espejo now 
pushed westward and reached the region of Pres- 
cott, where he discovered rich veins, later to be 
known as mines of fabulous wealth. Then, re- 
tracing his steps to the Rio Grande, he returned 
by way of the Pecos River to Santa Barbara, 
whither Father Beltran had preceded him. Espe- 
jo's report of the mines, of course, set the frontier 
on fire. 

The rumor that Drake, after raiding Spanish 
ships on the Pacific (1579), had found the Strait of 
Anian, and had sailed home through it, impelled 
the Spaniards to extend their power northward to 
the shores of that Strait. So Philip ordered the 
Viceroy of Mexico to make a contract with some 
one for the conquest and settlement of New Mexico. 
Several applicants came forward, including Espejo, 
who proposed at his own expense to colonize New 
Mexico with four hundred soldier-settlers and to 
build a port where the Strait of Anian entered the 
North Sea ! So great was the excitement in Mex- 
ico that some adventurers did not wait for official 
sanction, but set out on their own authority, know- 
ing that nothing succeeds like success. No result 
came of these unauthorized ventures, and, what 
with red tape and jealousies and disputes, it was 



170 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

some years before a contract was concluded with 
any one. The King had his Armada on his mind 
and, for the time, was pinning all his hopes upon 
that. But, in 1588, his Armada was beaten and 
almost wholly destroyed. His command of the sea 
was gone. And he turned again to his subjects 
in Mexico for help to make his power in the New 
World secure. At last, in 1595, just when Vizcaino 
was commissioned to colonize and hold California, 
the contract for the conquest and settlement of 
New Mexico was awarded to Juan de Onate of 
Zacatecas. The two expeditions, indeed, were 
regarded as parts of the same enterprise. 

Oiiate was the scion of a family distinguished for 
generations through service to the Crown in Spain 
and in Mexico; and he had married Isabel Tolosa 
Cortes Montezuma, a descendant of both Cortes 
and Montezuma II. He was granted extensive 
privileges in New Mexico, much like those con- 
ferred upon Menendez in Florida thirty years 
before. His colonists were promised the rank of 
hidalgo — for themselves and their heirs. The 
expedition was prepared in feudal style. Men of 
means were made captains. They did homage and 
swore fealty to Onate, sounded fife and drum, 
set up standards, and raised companies at their 



NEW MEXICO 171 

own expense. Rich men staked their fortunes on 
the gamble. 

Zacatecas was made the central rendezvous for 
the colony, which was recruited from far and near. 
Jealousies and underminings interfered so much 
in the preliminary stages that it was 1598 before 
Onate left Santa Barbara, the last important out- 
post on the frontier. In his train went one hun- 
dred and thirty soldier-settlers, most of them 
taking their families, a band of Franciscans under 
Father Martinez, a large retinue of negro and 
Indian slaves, seven thousand head of stock, and 
eighty -three wagons and carts for transporting the 
women and children and the baggage. 

The baggage must have been ample indeed if all 
the officers were as well supplied as Captain Luis de 
Velasco with wardrobe and appurtenances suitable 
to a cavalier in the wilderness. Don Luis had one 
suit of "blue Italian velvet trimmed with wide gold 
passementerie, consisting of doublet, breeches, and 
green silk stockings with blue garters and points of 
gold lace," a suit of rose satin, one of straw-colored 
satin, another of purple Castilian cloth, another of 
chestnut colored cloth, a sixth and daintier one, 
of Chinese flowered silk. He had two doublets of 
Castilian dressed kid and one of royal lion skin 



172 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

gold-trimmed; two linen shirts, fourteen pairs of 
Rouen linen breeches, forty pairs of boots, shoes, 
and gaiters, three hats, one black, trimmed around 
the crown with a silver cord and black, purple, 
and white feathers, another gray with yellow and 
purple feathers, the third of purple taflFeta trimmed 
with blue, purple, and yellow feathers and a band 
of gold and silver passementerie. He took four 
saddles "of blue flowered Spanish cloth bound with 
Cordovan leather," three suits of armor, and three 
suits of horse armor, a silver -handled lance with 
gold and purple tassels, a sword and gilded dagger 
with belts stitched in purple and yellow silk, a 
broadsword, two shields, and — as a protection 
against weather and sneezes — a raincoat and six 
linen handkerchiefs. A bedstead and two mat- 
tresses with coverlet, sheets, pillows, and pillow- 
cases and a canvas mattress-bag bound with leather 
completed his outfit — not forgetting servants, 
thirty horses and mules, and a silken banner. 

Instead of continuing down the Conchos, Onate 
opened a new trail direct to the Rio Grande. 
Early in April (1598) he reached the Medanos, 
the great sand dunes south of El Paso. On the 
twenty-sixth he camped on the river just below 
El Paso. Here on the thirtieth he took formal 



NEW MEXICO 173 

possession "of all the Kingdoms and provinces of 
New Mexico, on the Rio del Norte, in the name of 
our Lord King Philip." The day was given up 
to a celebration beginning with artillery salutes, 
Mass, and a sermon, and concluding with the 
presentation of a comedy written by Captain Far- 
fan. On the 4th of May Oiiate crossed the Rio 
Grande at El Paso. Then with sixty men he went 
ahead in person "to pacify the land.'* Two 
months later, at the present Santo Domingo, a 
pueblo west of Santa Fe, he received the sub- 
mission of the chiefs of seven provinces. Con- 
tinuing north a short distance, on July 11, 1598, he 
established headquarters at the pueblo of Caypa, 
then renamed and ever since known as San Juan, 
With the aid of fifteen hundred natives he began 
the construction of an irrigation ditch. His colo- 
nists came up with him early in August; and, on the 
8th of September, they celebrated the completion 
of the first church erected in New Mexico. On the 
next day chiefs from all the explored territory 
assembled to do honor to their Spanish super-chief 
and to receive their rods of- oflSce as lieutenants of 
King Philip. A tone of solemnity was given the 
scene by holding the ceremony in the kiva, or 
sacred council chamber, of the pueblo. There, on 



174 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

bended knee, the chiefs swore allegiance to God 
and the King of Spain, and sealed the oath by 
kissing the hands of Onate and Father Martinez. 

The ceremony over, Onate gave his mind to 
plans for exploration. He wished to explore the 
BuflFalo Plains, discover the Strait of Anian, open 
a land route to the Pacific, and take a look at the 
comitry northeastward beyond Quivira. 

Sixty men went to the plains to procure meat 
and tallow and to capture buffalo to domesticate. 
After a few tilts the plan to tame the ugly beasts 
was given up, but more than two thousand pounds 
of tallow were obtained. Onate went to Moqui, 
and from there Marcos Farfan led a party to the 
gold-fields of Arizona which Espejo had discovered, 
and staked out claims. On their way to join 
Onate, Juan de Zaldivar and fourteen companions 
were slain at Acoma, by the rebellious People of 
the White Rock. To punish the offenders Onate 
sent out an expedition which captured Acoma 
after two days of terrific fighting on its stone 
stairs, laid the pueblo waste by fire, and exter- 
minated most of its inhabitants. Shortly after- 
ward Onate led eighty men down the Canadian 
River, crossed Oklahoma, and entered Quivira at 
Wichita, Kansas; but he was forced to retreat by 



NEW MEXICO 175 

Indian hostility. Another golden dream had a 
prosaic awakening. 

Meanwhile disaster had befallen the colony, 
which by this time had moved its headquarters 
across the Rio Grande to San Gabriel, near Chama 
River. A dry season had made food scarce and, 
when Onate returned, he confiscated the supplies 
in the pueblos, leaving the Indians destitute. The 
friars, whose first thought was for their missions, 
were now in conflict with Onate. One of them 
wrote of him: "In all the expeditions he has butch- 
ered many Indians, human blood has been shed, 
and he has committed thefts, sackings, and other 
atrocities. I pray that God may grant him the 
grace to do penance for all his deeds." Hunger 
drove most of the settlers and all the friars but 
one back to Santa Barbara. Among those who 
withdrew, ruined in fortune, was Captain Luis de 
Velasco, the erstwhile Beau Brummel of the satin 
coats. Onate sent soldiers after his faint-hearted 
colonists to arrest and bring them back. Some of 
them returned, and Father Escobar came north as 
the new superior of the missionaries, bringing six 
new friars. 

Finally, in 1604, Onate carried out his intention 
of reaching the South Sea. It was his last throw of 



176 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

the dice. By this time he and his friends were 
ruined in fortune, and his reputation was under a 
cloud as a result of charges made by his rivals and 
enemies. New Mexico was already a white ele- 
phant on the royal hands. Ofiate must make a hit 
somewhere, and Vizcaino had just focused atten- 
tion on California. Westward, therefore, Onate 
again turned. With thirty men he followed the 
footsteps of Espejo and Farfan and went on to the 
Colorado, down the Colorado to the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia; explored the shore of the Gulf, found no 
pearl fisheries, and returned to San Gabriel con- 
vinced that California was an island. On the way 
he had heard from an Indian wag of a land to the 
north where people slept under water and wore 
golden bracelets; of a race of unipeds; of giant 
Amazons on a silver island to the west; of a tribe 
with long ears trailing on the ground, and of an- 
other nation which lived on smells. And, as Father 
Escobar indited of these matters, since God had 
created greater wonders and "since they have been 
affirmed by so many and different tribes . . . they 
cannot lack foundation." 

New Mexico was an expense. It had not led to 
discovery of the Strait of Anian; the distant mines 
of Arizona could not be worked without Indian 



NEW MEXICO 177 

labor, which could only be procured by keeping a 
large and costly military force in the country. The 
new Viceroy of Mexico reported on the province 
unfavorably to the King and urged that all ef- 
forts now be concentrated on California. The colo- 
nists were as disheartened as the Viceroy. They 
threatened to leave if ample supplies did not arrive 
within the year. At the same time, in August, 
1607, Oiiate asked for his release, unless sufficient 
aid was to be sent to him. This may have been 
a bluflp. If so, it was called. His request was 
granted and early in 1609 Pedro de Peralta arrived 
in San Gabriel as the new Governor with instruc- 
tions to find a better site and move the capital and 
colony thither. Thus Peralta founded the town of 
Santa Fe. Onate returned to Mexico, where the 
charges against him were pending for more than a 
decade. The rewards for his services were poverty, 
enemies, and disappointment. Nevertheless, he 
had founded a permanent outpost for Spain and a 
colony which after three centuries gives character 
to one of our commonwealths. 

Hopes of finding rich minerals in New Mexico 
having failed, the province remained chiefly a 
missionary field, with its principal secular settle- 
ment at Santa Fe. But as a missionary province 



178 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

it flourished. According to Father Benavides, by 
1630 there were fifty friars at work. Their twenty- 
five missions included ninety pueblos and sixty 
thousand converts. At each mission there were a 
school and workshops, where the neophytes were 
taught reading, writing, singing, instrumental music, 
and the manual arts. 

The account which Father Benavides gives of 
the Queres missions is typical of all. "Passing 
forward another four leagues," he says, " the Queres 
nation commences with its first pueblo, that of San 
Felipe, and extends more than ten leagues in seven 
pueblos. There must be in them four thousand 
souls, all baptized. There are three monasteries 
with very costly and beautiful churches, aside from 
those which each pueblo has. These Indians are 
very dexterous in reading, writing, and playing on 
all kinds of instruments and are skilled in all the 
crafts, thanks to the great industry of the friars 
who converted them." 

For eighty years Spaniards and Indians dwelt 
at peace with each other. But while the Indians 
accepted the religion of the friars, they also pre- 
served their own — as they have preserved it to 
this day — and, under demands that they give it 
up, coupled with penances and punishments, they 



NEW MEXICO 179 

became sullen. Then, too, they were driven to 
labor for their conquerors. The secret bitterness 
flamed up in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, led by 
Pope, a Tewa medicine man, who had suffered 
chains and flogging. At this time the Spanish 
population numbered nearly three thousand set- 
tlers, living chiefly in the upper Rio Grande valley 
between Isleta and Taos. Besides the towns of 
Santa Fe and Santa Cruz de la Canada, a settle- 
ment had also been formed on the river at El Paso, 
now the Mexican town of Juarez. In addition 
to the labor enforced on them, the Indians paid 
tribute yearly in cloth and maize for the benefit of 
the alien settlers. They were more than willing 
to listen to Pope when he talked of casting out the 
heavy-handed strangers. Pope — whipped out of 
San Juan for witchcraft — made his headquarters 
in Taos, whither he called the northern chiefs. 
The depth of his hatred for the Spaniards may be 
gauged by the fact that, having reason to suspect 
the fidelity of his son-in-law, Bua, governor of the 
San Juan pueblo, he slew him with his own hand. 
Isleta and the Piros pueblos to the south did not 
join in the conspiracy, but their lack was more than 
compensated by an alliance with the fierce Apaches. 
So masterly was Pope's generalship that the blow 



180 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

fell simultaneously on all the settlements. Men, 
women, children, and friars — over four hundred 
all told — were slaughtered indiscriminately ; the 
churches, houses, and property destroyed. About 
twenty-five hundred Spaniards escaped to the 
settlement at El Paso. 

For eighteen years the Indians held New Mexi- 
co. There was not a resident Spaniard north of 
the El Paso district. In 1692 Governor Diego de 
Vargas led an expedition for the reduction of the 
province. The reclamation and fortification of 
that territory, and the spread of Spanish rule 
beyond it, had again become vital. Vargas re- 
conquered New Mexico with comparatively little 
bloodshed; for most of the pueblos, taken by sur- 
prise, submitted without a blow. But when Var- 
gas returned in 1693 with a colony of eight hun- 
dred settlers, the northern towns made a stiff 
resistance. It was not until the end of 1694 that 
they were conquered. Taos, where the old con- 
spiracy had had its roots, was sacked and burned. 
The Indian warriors, taken prisoners in the battles, 
were executed; hundreds of women and children 
were made slaves. Once more in the following 
year did the Indians rise to repel the invader, but 
their strength was broken. A series of bloody 



NEW MEXICO 181 

campaigns by Vargas and his successor, Cubero, 
crushed at last their heroic spirit. The recon- 
quest was complete, and Spanish rule was made 
secure exactly a century after it had first been 
established by Onate. 

For another century and a quarter New Mexico 
continued under Spain; then it became a part of 
independent Mexico. It was a typical Spanish 
outpost, isolated and sluggish, quite unlike the 
lively mining and political centers of New Spain 
farther south. At Santa Fe a long succession of 
military governors ruled over the province and 
engaged sometimes in unsavory quarrels with the 
missionary superiors. 

The Indian pueblos were missions under the 
spiritual control of the padres, and mimic munici- 
palities with their own officers under the political 
and economic control of alcaldes, appointed by 
the Governor. In the larger pueblos Spanish and 
in the smaller half-caste alcaldes were usually 
appointed. The alcaldes appointed agents and 
seldom visited their Indian charges. The offices 
were means, not alone of controlling, but more par- 
ticularly of exploiting the natives. Each pueblo 
was required to carry provisions to the alcalde's 



182 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

home — a sheep a week, butter, beans, tortil- 
las, and other provisions. The natives also ren- 
dered personal service on the alcalde's hacienda 
or in his household. They planted, tilled, and 
harvested his crops, sometimes going long dis- 
tances and carrying their tools. When the wool or 
the cotton was gathered it was parceled out to 
the Indians to manufacture into fabrics — for the 
alcalde's benefit. Women were required for house- 
hold service, with resulting scandals. Indians 
often bought, at high prices, freedom for their 
women from this household service. The alcaldes 
and the Governor monopolized most of the trade 
with their pueblos. Weekly labor for the Gover- 
nor was so distributed that Indians from Rio 
Arriba went to Santa Fe to work between Resur- 
rection Day and All Saint's Day; those from Rio 
Aba jo going during the rest of the year. Every 
week five women were sent to grind corn and 
do other work at the Governor's palace, while a 
, certain number of men worked on his haciendas. 
For a picture of New Mexico in 1744 we are 
indebted to Father Menchero, procurator of the 
missions. The province included not only the set- 
tlements of the upper Rio Grande but the El 
Paso district "as well, on both sides of the river. 



NEW MEXICO 183 

At that time there were seven hundred and sev- 
enty-one households, or about ten thousand per- 
sons, for famihes were surprisingly large. Two- 
thirds of these people lived in the four principal 
cities of Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Albuquerque, and 
El Paso. Of these El Paso was the largest. The 
remainder lived on haciendas and ranches — 
rural villages they were, ranging from five to 
forty-six families each. The Franciscans still ad- 
ministered twenty-five missions, each contain- 
ing from thirty to one hundred families. Nine- 
teen of these missions were in the upper district, 
between Isleta and Taos, Pecos and Zuni. Six 
were strung along the Rio Grande below El Paso 
within a distance of twenty leagues. AH these were 
then on the right bank of the stream, but sub- 
sequent changes in the river bed have left some 
of them in Texas. Population increased slowly 
but steadily to the end of Spanish rule, when 
the province, not counting the El Paso district, 
had thirty thousand settlers. 

The Spaniards, so-called, were by no means all 
full-blood Castilians. In every frontier Spanish 
colony the soldiery was to a large extent made 
up of castes — mestizos, coyotes, and mulattoes 
— and New Mexico was no exception to the 



184 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

rule. As time went on, the Indian admixture in- 
creased. The laws of the Indies provided that 
Spaniards and castes should not settle in the In- 
dian towns and missions, on the theory that the as- 
sociation was bad for the Indian. Nevertheless, 
before the end of the eighteenth century many 
Spaniards, and especially the castes, settled in the 
Indian pueblos, where they gained possession of the 
Indian lands, and by getting the Indians in their 
debt, kept them in practical peonage. Similarly, 
the castes often got control of the pueblo gov- 
ernment. The Indians were required by law to 
nominate their own "governors," but in many 
cases the coyotes and mulattoes managed to secure 
the election. 

Of all the elements in the population none was 
more unhappy than the genizaros, or Janissaries. 
These were Indians of various tribes of the plains, 
ransomed or captured in childhood, employed as 
servants, and Christianized. They were employed 
especially as scouts and as auxiliaries in cam- 
paigns, hence their name. They were an extra- 
neous element in society, and they tended to seg- 
regate themselves from both Spaniards and Pueb- 
los. Frequently they ran away. For these out- 
casts the missionaries in 1740 founded a mission 



NEW MEXICO 185 

settlement at Thome on the Rio Grande, just be- 
low Isleta; others were founded later at Belen 
and Sabinal. 

The river valleys of New Mexico were highly 
productive. Irrigation was commonly practiced. 
In the upper districts maize, wheat, cotton, garden 
truck, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, mules, and 
fowls were raised on a considerable scale. Sheep 
raising flourished especially in the north, and 
cattle abounded at Taos and Soledad. The In- 
dians manufactured fabrics of cotton, wool, buf- 
falo, deer, and rabbit hides. At Albuquerque 
woolen and cotton fabrics were woven by the 
Spaniards. At El Paso a fine acequia watered 
large fields of wheat and maize and vineyards 
which produced "fine wine in no way inferior to 
that of Spain." Some of the haciendas were large 
and productive. That of Captain Rubin de Celis, 
ten leagues below El Paso, had on it twenty Span- 
ish families. The Treval hacienda, at Laguna, 
customarily planted two hundred fanegas (400 
bushels) of wheat and three hundred fanegas of 
maize, all by means of tributary Indian labor. 

At Taos annual fairs were held. Wild Indians 
brought captive children and buffalo and deer 
skins, to exchange for horses, mules, knives. 



186 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

hatchets, and trinkets. The Moqui pueblos had 
a large commerce in cattle and fabrics with the 
surrounding tribes, particularly with the Yumas 
and Mojaves of the Colorado River. The Span- 
iards conducted Indian trade at long distances, 
making frequent or even annual expeditions to the 
Jumanos of central Texas, to the Pawnees and the 
Arapahoes beyond the Arkansas, and to the vari- 
ous tribes of the Utah Basin, as far as Lake Utah. 
The monopolistic system of Spain restricted external 
trade to narrow channels. The great commercial 
event of the year was the departure of the annual 
caravan of cattle, carts, and pack mules, bound for 
Chihuahua, whither exports were sent and whence 
manufactured articles were obtained. 

In the eighteenth century the French of Louisi- 
ana began to smuggle into New Mexico much 
needed merchandise. After Louisiana passed into 
the hands of Spain, communication was opened 
with St. Louis, and trade with the Plains Indians 
increased. Early in the nineteenth century Ameri- 
can traders and adventurers attempted to enter 
the country, but usually fell into Spanish prisons. 
In 1806 Zebulon Pike, the American explorer, was 
captured by Spaniards and taken to Santa Fe. To 
his American eye Santa Fe's one-story houses of 



NEW MEXICO 187 

thick adobe walls looked from a distance "like a 
fleet of flat-boats which are seen in the spring and 
fall seasons descending the Ohio. . . . The public 
square is in the center of the town, on the north 
side of which is situated the palace or government 
house, with the quarters for the guards, etc. The 
other side of the square is occupied by the clergy 
and public officers. . . . The streets are very nar- 
row, say, in general, twenty-five feet. The supposed 
population is 4500." 

When Mexico threw off the Spanish yoke in 
1821, New Mexico became a province of Mexico, 
with a northern boundary at the forty-second 
parallel, including Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and 
most of Arizona. The exclusive policy of Spain 
was now relaxed, and American trappers and 
traders found free access. American pioneers like 
Kit Carson and Charles Bent adopted the country 
and married its daughters; and traders opened the 
great caravan trade from St. Louis to Santa Fe, 
thence to Chihuahua and to Los Angeles. When 
New Mexico passed into American hands the pop- 
ulation had reached sixty thousand — a figure 
about equal to the total French population in North 
America at the end of the French regime. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 

On the Pacific slope the frontiers of efifective settle- 
ment marched northward by slow degrees into 
Arizona and Lower California. This advance was 
led throughout the seventeenth century by Span- 
ish Jesuits, contemporaries of the better known 
Black Robes in Canada. Laboring in a much 
more propitious field, they were able to achieve 
more permanent results than their less numerous 
and less fortunate French brothers in the Cana- 
dian wilderness. The Jesuits on the Pacific slope 
made important contributions to civilization. A 
large part of the population in this area today 
has sprung from ancestors, on one side or the 
other, who got their first touch of European cul- 
ture in the Jesuit missions and most of the towns 
and cities of today have grown up on the sites of 
early missions. 

Missions were an integral part of Spain's scheme 

188 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 189 

of conquest. Experience on the frontiers of Mexi- 
co, repeated in Florida, proved that the methods 
of such conquerors and pacificators as Guzman and 
De Soto had worked ill on the whole. A mass of 
legislation and royal instructions issued in the 
seventeenth century indicates that the authorities 
desired to approximate to that ideal of conquest 
through love for which Fray Luis Cancer had, long 
ago, laid down his life on the sands of Florida. 

The Indians had a definite place in the Spanish 
scheme. Apart from the fact that Indian wars 
were costly, Spain wished to have the natives 
preserved and rendered docile and contented wards 
of the government. She needed their toil, because 
of the dearth of Spanish laborers. Furthermore 
she lacked white settlers. She planned, there- 
fore, to gather the Indians into permanent villages, 
to civilize them, and to use them as a bulwark 
against other European powers who might seek to 
plant colonies on her territory. Not to the con- 
quistador could she look for fulfillment of this 
design. For, though his contract bade him be 
tender, it offered him no means of enriching himself 
except through the fortuitous discovery of precious 
metals or pearls — or by plundering and exploit- 
ing the natives. Spain turned to the missionaries 



190 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

because the Indians were "well disposed to receive 
the friars" — as Mendoza had written to the King 
in describing Guzman's devastations in Sinaloa — 
"while they flee from us as stags fly in the forest."^ 

In the early days of conquest in the West Indies 
and Mexico the control of the Indians had been 
largely in the hands of trustees, called encomen- 
deros. They were secular persons, for the most 
part, entrusted (encomendar means to entrust) 
with the conversion, protection, and civilization 
of the natives, in return for the right to exploit 
them. In theory the scheme was benevolent. But 
human nature is weak, and the tendency of the 
trustee was to give his attention chiefly to exploi- 
tation and to neglect his obligations. As a result 
the encomienda became a black spot in the Span- 
ish colonial system. Efforts were made to abolish 
the evil, and by slow degrees some progress was 
achieved. Then, too, as the frontiers expanded, 
the institution tended to die a natural death. 
Civilized Aztecs were worth the trouble of conquer- 
ing; wild Apaches and warlike Creeks hardly, for 
the cost of subduing them was disproportionate to 
the returns from their labor. 

On the new frontiers, therefore, the care and 

' Lowery, Spanish Settlements, vol. i, p. 400. 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 191 

control of the Indians was given over largely to the 
missionaries, aided by soldiers. The missionaries 
were expected to convert, civilize, and control the 
Indians, without the old abuses of exploitation. 
So it was that in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries missions became almost universal on 
the frontiers. They operated simultaneously in 
the still unsubdued areas of northern Mexico, and 
in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, New 
Mexico, Arizona, and Lower California. 

It was in 1591 that the Jesuits, having after vain 
labors abandoned the Atlantic coast, first entered 
Sinaloa to heal the wounds made by the conquer- 
ors, and to gather together, convert, and civilize 
the remains of the native population. As they 
went slowly northward, tribe by tribe, valley by 
valley, they founded missions beside the streams, 
attracted the natives to them bj^ gifts and the 
display of religious pictures and images, bap- 
tized them, and gradually influenced them to col- 
lect in villages about the missions, to submit to 
the discipline of the padre in charge, to cultivate 
the soil, and to learn a few simple arts and crafts. 
By the middle of the seventeenth century they had 
reached the upper Sonora valley. Meanwhile set- 
tlers had crept in behind the missionaries to engage 



192 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

in mining, grazing, and agriculture. These little 
outposts on the Pacific coast mainland became a 
base for later developments in adjacent California. 
The man who led the way into Arizona and Lower 
California was one of the heroic figures of Ameri- 
can history — Eusebio Francisco Kino. This hardy 
Jesuit was born near Trent in 1645, of Italian par- 
entage, and was educated in Austria. He distin- 
guished himself as a student at Freiburg and Ingol- 
stadt and, in consequence, was offered a professor- 
ship in mathematics at the royal university of Ba- 
varia. He rejected the offer and vowed himself to 
the missionary service, as a follower of Saint Fran- 
cis Xavier, to whose intercession he attributed his 
recovery from a serious illness. He had hoped to 
go to the Far East, literally to follow in the foot- 
steps of his patron, but there came a call for 
missionaries in New Spain and hither he came 
instead. Arriving in 1681, he proceeded two years 
later, as rector of missions, with an expedition 
designed to colonize the peninsula of California. 
The natives, though among the lowest in intelli- 
gence and morality of any tribes in America, were 
un warlike and tractable on the whole. But a 
prolonged drought on the mainland, the base for 
supplies, caused the abandonment of the enterprise. 



THE MISSION OF SAN CARLOS, NEAR MONTEREY. 
CALIFORNIA 

Lithograph from a sketch by Captain W. Smyth, R.N. In 
California, a History, by Alexander Forbes (1839). 



M^ 



k\v{ao'^\iko 

■ ccnsi'M'.', , • ■.■■ 

nl .V'..il ,di'^in8 .W niaJqaO vd doisjla b moil liqisiso^^'^ 



'fWJ^jS- " 




JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 193 

Destiny reserved for Kino a more promising 
field. Missions had already been established over 
all of southern and eastern Sonora. But beyond, 
to the west and north, lay the virgin territory of 
Pimeria Alta, home of the upper Pimas, a region 
which comprised what is now northern Sonora and 
southern Arizona. At that day it was all included 
in the district of Sonora, to which it belonged until 
1853, when the northern portion was cut off by the 
Gadsden Purchase. 

Father Kino arrived in Pimeria Alta in March, 
1687, the very month when La Salle met his death 
in the wilds of central Texas, and began a term 
of service that was to last for twenty-four years. 
The frontier mission station when he arrived was 
at Cucurpe, in the valley of the river now called 
San Miguel. Cucurpe still exists, a quiet little 
Mexican pueblo, sleeping under the shadow of 
the mountains, and inhabited by descendants of 
Indians who were there in Kino's time. 

Some fifteen miles above Cucurpe, on the San 
Miguel River, Kino founded the mission of Neus- 
tra Senora de los Dolores — Our Lady of Sor- 
rows. The site chosen was one of peculiar fitness 
and beauty. Nearby the little San Miguel breaks 
through a narrow canyon, whose walls rise several 

13 



194 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

hundred feet in height. Above and below the 
gorge the river valley broadens out into rich vegas, 
or irrigable bottom lands, half a mile or more in 
width and several miles in length. On the east 
the valley is walled in by Sierra de Santa Teresa, 
on the west by the Sierra del Torreon. Closing 
the lower valley and hiding Cucurpe stands Cerro 
Prieto; and cutting off the observer's view to- 
ward the north rises the grand and rugged Sierra 
Azul. At the canyon where the river breaks 
through, the western mesa juts out and forms a 
cliff approachable only from the east. On this 
promontory, protected on three sides from attack, 
and affording a magnificent view, was placed the 
mission of Dolores. Here still stand its ruins, in 
full view of the valley above and below, of the 
mountain walls on the east and west, the north and 
south, and within the sound of the rushing cataract 
of the San Miguel as it courses through the gorge. 
This meager ruin on the cliff, consisting now of 
a mere fragment of an adobe wall and saddening 
piles of debris, is the most venerable of all the many 
mission remains in Arizona and northern Sonora, 
for Our Lady of Sorrows was mother of them all, 
and for nearly a quarter of a century was the home 
of the remarkable missionary who built them. 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 195 

From his station at Dolores, Kino and his com- 
panions, Jesuits and soldiers, pushed the frontier of 
missionary work and exploration across Arizona 
to the Gila and Colorado rivers. Most faithful 
amongst his associates, and his companion on many 
a long journey over the deserts, was Lieutenant 
Juan Mange, who, like Kino, has left us excellent 
accounts of these pioneer days. 

Kino began his exploration into what is now Ari- 
zona in 1691. He was accompanied on his first 
journey by Father Salvatierra, who had come from 
the south as a visitor. They went north as far as 
Tumacacori, a Pima village on the Santa Cruz 
River, now the site of a venerable mission ruin. In 
the following year Kino reached San Xavier del Bac 
and entered the valley of the San Pedro, north of 
Douglas. At Bac he spoke to the natives the 
word of God, "and on a map of the world showed 
them the lands, the rivers, and the seas over which 
we fathers had come from afar to bring them the 
saving knowledge of the holy faith"; so giving 
them a lesson in geography, as well as a bit of Gos- 
pel truth. Two years later Kino descended the 
Santa Cruz River to the Casa Grande, the famous 
ruin on the Gila River, of which in his writings he 
gives us the first description. "The casa grande" 



196 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

he observes, "is a four-story building, as large as a 
castle, and equal to the largest church in these 
lands of Sonora. It is said that the ancestors of 
Montezuma deserted and depopulated it, and, be- 
set by the neighboring Apaches, left for the East, 
or Casas Grandes, ^ and that from there they turned 
toward the south and southwest, finally founding 
the great city of Mexico." Mange adds a note 
of description. He mentions the thick walls of 
"strong cement and clay ... so smooth on the 
inside that they resemble planed boards, and so 
polished that they shine like Puebla pottery." 

Despite his success amongst the Pimas, Father 
Kino had never lost interest in the Indians of Lower 
California, and in 1695 he and Salvatierra, still 
working in unison, went to Mexico to urge a new 
attempt to found missions there. Two years later 
the two had the distinction — always cherished by 
Kino — of being personally named by the King to 
head the work. But the settlers in Sonora clam- 
ored to have Kino remain in Pimeria Alta, where 
he was needed to help keep the Indians quiet, and 
Father Picolo went with Salvatierra instead. But 
on Kino's continued support the success of the 
work largely depended. 

> In Chihuahua. 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 197 

The difficulty of sending supplies across the Gulf 
to Salvatierra's new missions quickened Kino*s in- 
terest in northwestern exploration, and brought 
about a revolution in his geographical notions. He 
had come to America with the belief that California 
was a peninsula, but, under the influence of cur- 
rent teachings, he had accepted the theory that it 
was an island. During his journey to the Gila in 
1699, however, the Indians had made him a pres- 
ent of some blue shells, such as he had seen on the 
western coast of California and nowhere else. He 
now reasoned that, as the Indians could not have 
crossed the Gulf, California must be, after all, a 
peninsula, and that it might be possible to find a 
land route over which to send provisions and stock 
to Salvatierra's struggling establishments. To 
test this theory was the principal object of Kino's 
later explorations. By 1702 he had explored the 
Colorado from the mouth of the Gila to the Gulf 
and had proved, to his own satisfaction at least, 
that Lower California was not an island but a 
peninsula. The map which he made of his ex- 
plorations, published in 1705, was not improved 
upon for more than a century. 

As Kino explored and questioned natives about 
blue shells and hidden trails over the arid deserts 



198 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

and the stark peaks, he baptized and taught in 
little huts which the wondering Indians built to 
serve as chapels. Kino's diaries reveal not only a 
consuming zeal for his faith, but a deep love and 
paternal care for his red-skinned flock. He was not 
satisfied with itinerant preaching, which left the 
Indians to revert to their pagan ways between 
his visits; but he gathered them into missions as the 
law required. By 1696 Kino had begun to prepare 
for resident missions in Arizona by founding stock 
ranches in the Santa Cruz and San Pedro valleys, 
and four years later had begun the building of San 
Xavier del Bac, near the present Tucson, which is 
in use to this day. On April 28, 1700, he wrote in 
his diary: " . . .we began the foundations of a 
very large and capacious church and house of San 
Xavier del Bac, all the many people working with 
much pleasure and zeal, some in digging for the 
foundations, others in hauling many and very good 
stones of tezontle, ^ from a little hill which was about 
a quarter of a league away. For the mortar for 
these foundations it was not necessary to haul 
water, because by means of the irrigation ditches 
we very easily conducted the water where we 
wished. And that house, with its great court and 

' A porous stone much used by Mexicans for building. 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 199 

garden nearby, will be able to have throughout the 
year all the water it may need, running to any 
place or work-room one may please, and one of the 
greatest and best fields in all Nueva Biscaya." ^ 

The "many people" were three thousand Indians 
who had gathered to meet him and to beseech him 
to remain with them. Kino was willing, for he re- 
garded San Xavier as the strategic point in his 
plans for advance. He asked permission to move 
his headquarters thither, but he was needed else- 
where, and in his stead Father Gonzalvo was sent. 
In the same year Mission San Gabriel was built at 
Guebavi and Father San Martin was installed 
there. For the support of his missions and the In- 
dians who gathered about them Kino started large 
stock and grain farms; and once at least he sent 
as many as seven hundred head of cattle to his 
brethren on the Peninsula of Cahfornia. 

As an explorer Kino ranks among the greatest 
of the Southwest. From Mission Dolores, during 
the twenty-four years of his ministry, he made over 
fifty journeys, which varied in length from a hun- 
dred to a thousand miles. He crossed repeatedly 
in various directions all the country between the 
Magdalena and the Gila rivers and between the 

' Bolton, Kino's Historical Memoir, vol. ii, pp. 235-36. 



200 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

San Pedro and the Colorado. One of his trails lay 
over the waterless Devil's Highway, where scores 
of adventurers have since lost their lives. Some- 
times his only companions were a few Indian ser- 
vants. But he usually traveled with plenty of 
horses and mules from his ranches, sometimes as 
many as a hundred and thirty head. His physical 
hardihood was great, and there are many stories of 
his hard riding. More than once, like a general. 
Kino mustered his Pima children and sent them 
out to war against the unsociable Apaches. And, 
when the Spanish authorities disputed the number 
of Apache scalps they were requested to pay for, 
it was Kino who galloped off to count the scalps 
and see to it that his children were not stinted 
of their bonus. For himself, he cherished hard- 
ship. He ate sparingly, drank no wine, and went 
meagerly clothed. 

Kino's last days were to him a time of stagna- 
tion and disappointment. The Spanish monarchy 
was at its lowest ebb, and funds for the support of 
the missions were not to be had unless they served 
some important political purpose. Texas, not Ari- 
zona, was the danger point now, and funds had to 
be used there. Kino died in 1711 at Magdalena, 
one of the missions which he had founded, across 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 201 

the mountains from Dolores. He was not yet 
seventy. Father Velarde, a companion, has thus 
described his last moments: "He died as he had 
lived, with extreme humility and poverty. . . . 
His deathbed, as his bed had always been, con- 
sisted of two calfskins for a mattress, two blankets 
such as the Indians use for covers, and a pack- 
saddle for a pillow. . . . No one ever saw in him 
any vice whatsoever, for the discovery of lands and 
the conversion of souls had purified him. . . . 
He was merciful to others but cruel to himself." 

For two decades now the Arizona frontier slum- 
bered. Then, Apache depredations in Sonora, a 
military inspection, and a visit by the Bishop of 
Durango shook it to renewed life. A missionary 
revival followed. In 1732 a new band of Jesuits, 
mainly Germans — Keler, Sedelmayr, Steiger, 
Grashofer, Paver — took up the work which the 
great founder had laid down with his life. San 
Xavier and others of the abandoned missions were 
reoccupied. Interest in the border was enhanced 
by a mining "rush" in 1736. Immense nuggets of 
free silver were found at Arizonac, in the upper Al- 
tar valley, just over the present Sonora line. It is 
from this place that the State of Arizona gets its 
name. For a time the region fairly hummed with 



202 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

life, but after five years the mines played out and 
there was another dozing spell. A Pima uprising in 
1751 caused another awakening. To hold the dis- 
trict a presidio was built at Tubac in 1752. Here 
the military frontier halted for twenty-four years, 
and then it advanced to Tucson. 

Meanwhile Salvatierra and his companions — 
for others had joined him from time to time — were 
succeeding across the Gulf of California. Having 
slender royal aid, the missionaries had to depend 
at first on private alms. In a short time prominent 
individuals had contributed $47,000, which con- 
stituted the nucleus of the famous Pious Fund of 
California. Missionary beginnings were made at 
Loreto, halfway up the inner coast of the Penin- 
sula. Soon a palisaded fort and church were con- 
structed there, and within a year Salvatierra had 
four launches plying back and forth, to and from 
the mainland. Gradually the work extended to the 
surrounding country, new missions were founded 
in the neighborhood, and explorations were made 
across the Peninsula to the Pacific. Salvatierra 
was much interested in Kino's efforts to establish a 
land route between Arizona and Lower California, 
and joined him, in 1701, on one of his expeditions. 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 203 

In a report written in February, 1702, Father 
Picolo, in fervid and poetic language tells of the 
landing of himself and Salvatierra and depicts their 
mission as it appeared to them in their spirit of ex- 
altation and sacrifice. They had taken, he wrote, 
"as the guiding star of our voyage that star of the 
sea, the most devoted image of the Lady of Loreto, 
which led us without mishap to the desired port." 
And on landing they had set up the image "as de- 
cently as the country and our poverty would per- 
mit" and had placed the "undertaking in her 
hands" that she, like a "beneficent sun," might 
banish the pagan night blinding the Indians with 
the shadows of death. Satan had not watched the 
coming of the padres unmoved at the prospect 
of losing "his ancient and peaceful possession" of 
heathen souls. 

As he blinded their understandings, they could not 
comprehend the words of the light which, with re- 
splendent rays, spoke the language of heaven for their 
welfare, while we, upon hearing a language which we 
had not known, could not in ours, which they had not 
heard, make known to them the high purpose, for them 
so advantageous, which had taken us to their lands. 
And although we had gone to their shores solely to 
seek the precious pearls of their souls, to nurture them 
with the heavenly dew of the Divine Word, and to give 



204 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

them their luster in Christ, showing them the celestial 
shell Mary, who conceived for their good, with the 
gentle dew of heaven, the perfect pearl of first luster, 
Christ, they thought we came like others who at other 
times, sometimes not without injury to their people, 
had landed on their shores in search of the many and 
rich pearls which were produced in the countless fisher- 
ies of their coast. With this opinion quickened at 
the instigation of the Devil, . . . they attacked our 
little guard . . . with such fury and so thick a 
shower of arrows and stones that if the Lady had not 
constituted an army to resist it . . . our purpose 
would have been frustrated. With this glorious tri- 
umph their pride was humbled. , . . Some of them 
came to our camp .... Then through easy inter- 
course with them we devoted all our efforts to learning 
their language. ^ 

Salvatierra followed the same plan which Kino 
and his associates employed in establishing their 
work. He sent a padre, or went himself, to visit a 
tribe, to make gifts and to talk of religion, until the 
Indians were won over and were willing to have a 
mission erected in their village. Each new mis- 
sion was placed within easy commmiication of one 
already established from which supplies could be 
drawn until the new mission was able to sup- 
port itself. Some fifteen missions were ultimately 
established in Salvatierra's domain by separate 

' Bolton, Kino's Historical Memoir, vol. ii, pp. 47-49. 



JESUITS ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 205 

endowment made through the charity and zeal of 
some rich CathoHc who sought by this means his 
own grace and the benefit of the heathen. Two 
were endowed with ten thousand pesos each by a 
"priest commissioner of the court of the Holy Of- 
fice of the Inquisition," another by certain mem- 
bers of a Jesuit college in Mexico; but the greater 
part of the Pious Fund was contributed by non- 
clericals. Patiently Salvatierra and his assistants 
Went on their chosen task, erecting missions, gather- 
ing the Indians in pueblos under trustworthy na- 
tive alcaldes, teaching them agriculture, stock 
raising, saddlery, and shoemaking, improving on 
the native fashion of weaving, and — for the beau- 
tifying of the church services and for their own in- 
nocent entertainment — instructing them in music 
and singing. 

In the midst of his work Salvatierra was called 
to Mexico to serve as provincial of New Spain, but 
at the expiration of his term he returned and con- 
tinued his work till 1717. For twenty years the 
history of Lower California had been little more 
than his own biography. After Salvatierra's death 
more liberal aid was provided, and new missions 
were established both in the south and the north. 
Before their expulsion the Jesuits had founded 



206 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

missions and opened trails throughout almost the 
entire length of the peninsula. 

The lives of such men as Kino and Salvatierra — 
and of some of their associates who met martyrdom 
at the hands of their flocks — are the undimming 
gold of one side of the shield. It was for what he 
professed to see on the reverse side of that shield 
that Carlos III, in 1767, banished the Jesuits from 
his dominions. For a year or two the Franciscans 
occupied the former Jesuit field; but, when a new 
advance north was made, the Peninsula was as- 
signed to the Dominicans and Alta California to 
the Franciscans. 

The work of the Jesuits in Lower California had 
opened the way for the colonization of Alta Cali- 
fornia. The preparations for settlement were made 
at Loreto and other mission towns, from which the 
land expeditions started ; and the ships from Mex- 
ico were overhauled and stocked in seaports on the 
Peninsula. Thus the first stages of the northward 
journey of the founders of California were made 
through a province where peaceable natives and a 
chain of missions and mission farms reduced the 
hazards of the march. 



CHAPTER VIII 

TEXAS 

In the sixteenth century Spain, as we have seen, 
had thrust up into the North the two outposts of 
Florida and New Mexico. In time foreign intru- 
sion made it necessary to occupy the intervening 
region called Texas, which embraced a goodly slice 
of what is now Louisiana. While Spain was busy 
farther south, other nations were encroaching on 
her northern claims . By 1 670 England had planted 
strong centers of colonization all the way from 
Jamaica to New England, and had erected trading 
posts on Hudson Bay. French traders from Can- 
ada, meanwhile, had been pushing up the St. Law- 
rence to the Great Lakes and branching north 
and south through the wilderness. At the same 
time French and English buccaneers from the 
West Indies were marauding the Florida settle- 
ments and the coast towns of Mexico. English, 
French, and Spanish territorial claims and frontier 

207 



208 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

settlements clashed. The lines of competition, im- 
perial and commercial, were drawing tighter with 
every passing year. 

On the Atlantic coast the Anglo-Spanish fron- 
tiers clashed with resounding echo from the very 
moment of the founding of Charleston (1670), just 
across from the Spanish outpost Santa Elena, on 
Port Royal Sound. If Plymouth Rock and Hudson 
Bay were too remote to have a direct influence on 
Spanish claims, nevertheless their indirect influence 
— through the acceleration they gave to French 
activities — was to be potent. France's opportu- 
nity, indeed, seemed golden. And it was in theWest. 
In Europe France was rapidly taking the position 
of supremacy which had been Spain's; and New 
France promised to become not only a valuable 
source of revenue through the fur trade — if the 
wide beaver lands "beyond" could be secured — 
but also the point of control over the Strait of An- 
ian for which French explorers as well as Spanish 
sought. The French had heard also of a great river 
flowing through the continent; they hoped to dis- 
cover that river and thus control the best trade 
route to China. When Joliet and Marquette de- 
scended the Mississippi to the Arkansas in 1673 and 
returned to publish their news in Quebec, some of 



TEXAS 209 

their hearers at least beheved that the river had 
been found. 

Chief of these was Robert Caveher de la Salle, 
a recent arrival in Canada. La Salle hurried to 
France and laid before the King apian to extend the 
fur trade to the Illinois country and explore the 
Mississippi, which rose in Asia, to its mouth. Four 
years later, having erected posts in Illinois, La Salle 
landed at the mouth of the Mississippi and claimed 
the territory along its course for France. The dis- 
covery that the river emptied into the Mexican 
Gulf put a new idea into La Salle's fertile brain. 
He made another journey to France and proposed 
to plant a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, 
and thus to secure the river highway for France and 
establish a vantage point for the control of the Gulf 
and for descent upon the Spanish mines of northern 
Mexico. In the summer of 1684 he sailed from 
France with his colony; and toward the end of the 
year he landed on the Texas coast at Matagorda 
Bay. It was because of faulty maps, perhaps, that 
he had missed the mouth of the Mississippi. One 
of his four ships had been captured by Spaniards 
en route and another was wrecked on entering the 
bay. Beaujeu, the naval commander, who had 
quarreled with La Salle from the first, turned his 

14 



210 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

vessel about and returned to France, carrying away 
some of the soldiers and a large quantity of much 
needed supplies. Tonty, La Salle's lieutenant in 
the Illinois country, who was to meet him at the 
mouth of the Mississippi with men and provisions, 
found no trace of him there and, after vain waiting, 
returned to the Illinois post. 

Indian attacks and an epidemic worked havoc 
among the settlers, and La Salle moved his colony 
to a better site on the Garcitas River near the head 
of Lavaca Bay. ^ He set out from this point in 
search of the Mississippi, which he believed to be 
near, expecting to meet with Tonty. While he 
was exploring the eastern waters of Matagorda 
Bay, the last of his ships was wrecked. La Salle 
then started overland, northeastward. He reached 
the Nasoni towns north of the present Nacogdoches 
in northeastern Texas, some eighty miles from the 
Red River. Illness, and the desertion of some of 
his men, forced him to retrace his steps. He found 
his colony, a mere handful now, facing starva- 
tion. Though worn with hardships and fatigue, La 
Salle resolved on the effort to bring help from the 

' Not on the Lavaca River as stated by Parkman and Winsor. 
The author in 1914 determined that the site of the colony was 
five miles above the mouth of the Garcitas River on the ranch of 
Mr. Claude Keeran, in Victoria County, Texas. 



TEXAS 211 

niinois posts. This would seem a hopeless under- 
taking; for he had not found the Mississippi, by 
which he had previously descended from the Illinois 
country, and he had no idea of the distances he 
must travel across an unknown wilderness. He 
set out nevertheless with a few companions, includ- 
ing his brother, the Abbe Jean Cavelier, and his 
nephew Moranget. He crossed the Colorado near 
the present Columbus and, keeping on northward, 
forded the Brazos just above Navasota. Here he 
was treacherously slain by some of his men,^ who 
had already killed Moranget. 

The survivors of La Salle's party continued 
northeastward. Some deserted in the Indian towns. 
The others, including La Salle's brother, crossed 
the Red River near Texarkana and the intervening 
country to the mouth of the Arkansas, ascended 
to Tonty's post on the Illinois, and returned to 
Canada. They did not inform Tonty of La Salle's 
death, nor of the perilous condition of the little col- 
ony on the Gulf. Except for two or three men and 
some children, who were taken by the Indians — 
nine persons in all — the whole colony perished. 

' Historians have supposed that this dastardly act was com- 
mitted near the Trinity or the Neches, but evidence now avail- 
able makes it clear that the spot was between the Brazos and 
Navasota rivers and near the present city of Navasota. 



212 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

When the mishaps attending La Salle's venture are 
reviewed — including a former attempt to poison 
him, the capture of one of his ships by the Span- 
iards, the desertion of Beaujeu, his assassination 
and the suppression of the news of it from the faith- 
ful Tonty who might have succored the colony — 
it is difficult not to suspect that his eflPorts were 
beset with subtle treachery from the beginning. 

If the news of La Salle's expedition caused a sen- 
sation in Spain, it roused the greatest alarm along 
the whole northern Spanish frontier in the New 
World, from Chihuahua to Cuba. The West In- 
dies were no longer solely Spanish. The progress 
of the century had brought English, French, and 
Dutch to the lesser islands neglected by Spain. 
English settlers now occupied the Bermudas and 
several other islands. English arms had taken 
Jamaica and, in the peace concluded in 1670, Spain 
had recognized England's right to it and to the 
others she had colonized. The French West India 
Company had founded colonies on Guadeloupe, 
Martinique, and in the Windward Islands. The 
Dutch had trading stations on St. Eustatius, To- 
bago, and Curagao; and English, French, and 
Dutch held posts in Guiana. Raids from these 
bases on Spanish ports and treasure fleets were all 



TEXAS 213 

too frequent and too costly, even if no recent buc- 
caneer had rivaled the exploit of Piet Heyn of the 
Dutch West India Company who, in 1628, had 
chased the Vera Cruz fleet into Matanzas River, 
Cuba, and captured its cargo worth $15,000,000. 

That sons of a France growing swiftly in power 
had pushed south from Canada through the hinter- 
land and planted themselves on the Gulf where 
they could cooperate with the lively pirates of the 
French Indies was news to stir Mexico, Florida, 
and the Spanish West Indies to a ferment. The 
Spanish authorities hastily sent out expeditions 
east and west by sea and land to discover and de- 
molish La Salle's colony. Mariners from Vera Cruz 
returned to that harbor to report two wrecked 
French ships in Matagorda Bay and no sign of 
a colony. It was concluded that La Salle's ex- 
pedition had been destroyed and that the French 
menace was over, for the time being at least. 

The outposts in New Leon and Coahuila, just 
south of the Rio Grande, had been no less roused 
than the harbor towns of Havana and Vera Cruz. 
To the Spanish frontiersmen, dreaming even yet 
of a rich kingdom "beyond," the thought of a 
French colony expanding to bar their way was in- 
tolerable. Their spirit was embodied in the figure 



214 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

of Alonso de Leon. A frontiersman by birth and 
training, famed for a score of daring exploits as a 
border fighter, Alonso de Leon was well fitted for 
the task to which the needs of the time summoned 
him. Under orders from Mexico, in 1686, Leon set 
off from Monterey on the first of his expeditions in 
search of La Salle's colony, following the south 
bank of Rio Grande to the Gulf of Mexico. Next 
year he reconnoitered the north bank. But not 
till his third expedition did he come in direct touch 
with the French peril. He was now governor of 
Coahuila, at Monclova. This time he encountered 
a tribe of Indians north of the Rio Grande who 
were being ruled with all a chief's pomp by a 
Frenchman called by the Spaniards Jarri. It ap- 
pears that Jarri was not one of La Salle's settlers, 
but an independent adventurer who had wan- 
dered thus early into southwestern Texas from the 
Illinois country or from Canada. He was prompt- 
ly stripped of his feathers, of course, and sent to 
Mexico to be questioned by the Viceroy. 

The oflBcials were now thoroughly frightened. A 
new expedition was immediately sent out under 
Leon, who took with him Father Damian Mas- 
sanet, a Franciscan friar, the Frenchman Jarri, one 
hundred soldiers, and seven hundred mules and 



TEXAS 215 

horses. Leon could at least promise the Indians 
a show of Spanish pomp and power. In March, 
1689, Leon crossed the Rio Grande and, bearing 
eastward, crossed the Nueces, Frio, San Antonio, 
and Guadalupe rivers. Late in April he came upon 
the site of La Salle's settlement. There stood five 
huts about a small wooden fort built of ship plank- 
ing, with the date "1684" carved over the door. 
The ground was scattered with weapons, casks, 
broken furniture, and corpses. Among some In- 
dians a few leagues away Leon found two of the 
colonists, one of whom had had a hand in La Salle's 
murder. He learned also that Tonty had erected 
a fort on a river inland, the Arkansas, or perhaps 
the Illinois. On the Colorado River Leon and Mas- 
sanet had a conference with the chief of the Nabe- 
dache tribe, who had come from the Neches River 
to meet them. The chief promised to welcome 
missionaries at his village. 

Leon returned to make a report in which pie- 
ty and business sense are eloquently combined. 
"Certainly it is a pity," he admonished, "that 
people so rational, who plant crops and know that 
there is a God, should have no one to teach them 
the Gospel, especially when the province of Texas 
is so large and fertile and has so fine a climate." 



216 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

A large and fertile country already menaced by 
the French did indeed call for missions. Leon was 
dispatched a fifth time with one hundred and ten 
soldiers to escort Massanet and his chosen helpers 
to the Nabedache towns of the Asinai (Texas) In- 
dians, near the Neches River in eastern Texas. 
On the way they paused long enough for Father 
Massanet to set fire to La Salle's fort. As the 
Spaniards were approaching their objective from 
the Southwest, Tonty on a second journey to seek 
La Salle — in Illinois he had heard sinister reports 
through the Indians — reached the Red River and 
sent an Indian courier to the Nabedache chief to 
request permission to make a settlement in his 
town. On being told of Le6n*s proximity Tonty 
retreated. The fleur-de-lis receded before the ban- 
ner of Castile. The Spanish flag was raised at the 
Nabedache village in May, 1690, before the eyes of 
the wondering natives, formal possession was taken 
and the mission of San Francisco was founded. 
The expedition now turned homeward, leaving 
three Franciscan friars and three soldiers to hold 
Spain's first outpost in Texas. 

Another expedition, after Alonso de Le6n's 
death in 1691, set out from Monclova under Do- 
mingo Teran, a former governor of Sinaloa and 



TEXAS 217 

Sonora, accompanied by Massanet to found more 
missions, on the Red River as well as the Neches. 
Teran returned without having accompHshed any- 
thing, largely because of violent quarrels with Mas- 
sanet, who opposed the planting of presidios be- 
side the missions. Massanet remained with two 
friars and nine soldiers — the peppery padre pro- 
testing against the presence even of the nine. He 
soon learned that soldiers were sometimes needed. 
The Indians, roused by their leaders, turned 
against the missionaries and ordered them to de- 
part. There was no force to resist the command. 
On October 25, 1693, Massanet applied the torch 
to the first Spanish mission in Texas, even as he had 
earlier fired La Salle's French fort, and fled. Four 
soldiers deserted to the Indians. One of them, 
Jose Urrutia, after leading a career as a great In- 
dian chief, returned to civilization, and became 
commander at San Antonio, where his descendants 
still live and are prominent. The other five, with 
the three friars, after three months of weary and 
hungry marching, during forty days of which they 
were lost, at last entered Coahuila. 

For the time being Texas was now abandoned 
by both contestants. But the French traders were 
only looking for a better opportunity and a more 



218 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

advantageous spot to continue the conflict, which, 
on their side, was directed against England 
as well as Spain. They had learned that Eng- 
lish fur traders from South Carolina had already 
penetrated to the Creeks and to other tribes east 
of the Mississippi and they feared that England 
would seize the mouth of the river. The Spaniards 
also were disturbed by the English. They had 
been driven, in 1686, out of Port Royal and north- 
ern Georgia. Now they were alarmed by English 
fur-trading expeditions into Alabama and by the 
discovery that the Indians of Mobile Bay had 
moved north to trade with the English of CaroUna. 
Thus, while France prepared to carry out La 
Salle's plan to colonize the Gulf coast, Spain with 
jealous eye watched the movements of both Eng- 
land and France. It was a three-cornered struggle. 
In 1697 the King of France, Louis XIV, com- 
missioned Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, fighting 
trader, hero of the fur raids on Hudson Bay, and 
the most dashing military figure in New France, to 
found, on the Mexican Gulf, a colony to be named 
Louisiana. To forestall the French an expedition 
was immediately dispatched from Vera Cruz to 
Pensacola Bay, where in November, 1698, the post 
of San Carlos was erected and garrisoned. The 



TEXAS 219 

move was none too soon. In January (1699) 
Iberville's fleet stood off the harbor and demanded 
admittance. The commander of San Carlos re- 
fused courteously but firmly. Iberville rewarded 
him for his compliments with others from the same 
mint, withdrew, sailed westward, and built a fort 
at Biloxi. 

But there were to be no battles, at present, 
between Spaniards and French for Louisiana. The 
fate of that territory was settled in Europe. The 
Spanish King, Charles II, died. He left no son; 
and, forced by the danger that a dismembering war 
for the succession would follow on his death, he 
bequeathed the crown to his grandnephew, the 
Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV and 
French in blood, sympathies, and education. The 
new King, Philip V, barkened readily enough to his 
French grandfather's suggestion that, in order to 
protect Spain's Gulf possessions from England, 
France must be allowed to colonize Louisiana. 
The Spanish War Council objected, and Philip 
let the matter drop, but the French settlement 
was quietly moved from Biloxi to Mobile Bay, 
nearer to the Spanish border. When in 1702 
the War Council heard of it and protested, they 
were rebuked by Philip. Thus Spain, dominated 



220 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

by a Bourbon King, was forced to permit the 
occupation of Louisiana by France. 

Iberville's brother, the Sieur de Bienville, a 
brilliant and vigorous commander, was appointed 
in 1701 Governor of Louisiana. Bienville con- 
centrated his energies on alliances with the tribes 
east and west of the Mississippi to prevent them 
from trafficking with the English and to divert the 
southern fur trade to the French posts. Bienville 
was succeeded in 1713 by Cadillac, founder of 
Detroit, who served for three years, but Bienville 
continued to be the life of the colony. By 1716 
the Mississippi, Mobile, and Red rivers had been 
explored by Bienville's men, sometimes led by 
himself. And French traders from Canada and 
the Illinois had explored the Missouri for several 
hundred miles and had built posts southward from 
the Illinois to the lower Ohio. In 1718 Bienville 
founded New Orleans. France's hold was thus 
fastened upon Louisiana, and Spain's colonies 
round the Gulf were split in two. 

During the sixteen years of Bienville's activity, 
disturbing rumors had reached the Spanish bor- 
der. To New Mexico came reports of French- 
men trading with the Pawnees and of French voy- 
ageurs on the rivers to the northeast. Though 



TEXAS 221 

in various Spanish expeditions from Santa Fe 
against Comanches and Apaches no French were 
seen, yet the fear of their approach increased. 
Similar rumors were heard on the Rio Grande 
border. One not slow to take advantage of this 
general alarm was Father Hidalgo, a Franciscan 
who had been with Massanet at his mission in 
Texas. The intervening years had been spent by 
Hidalgo chiefly in founding and conducting mis- 
sions in Coahuila, a work which had led the way for 
the secular powers and thus pushed the frontier 
of mining and ranching to the south bank of the 
Rio Grande. With heart burning for the welfare 
of his former ungrateful charges, he had made 
many earnest appeals to be allowed to return to 
Texas, but the superiors of his Order would not 
sanction his plea. ^ Hidalgo, with genuine politi- 
cal shrewdness, then resolved to turn the French 
menace to good account. If he could prove that 
Spain's territory of Texas was in imminent danger, 
he knew that missions would be founded without 
delay. So he wrote a letter in 1711 to the French 

' A myth has found currency in recent years to the effect that, 
despite this opposition, Hidalgo returned to Texas, dwelt for a 
time among the Asinais and there wrote his appeal to the French 
priests. But his writings preserved in the College of Queretaro in 
Mexico and examined by the author disprove the story. 



222 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

priests of Louisiana, begging them to "pacify the 
tribes hostile to the Asinai nation, who were 
nearer to their settlements, thereby to give thue 
greatest honor and glory to God." Just why paci- 
jBcation of the Louisiana tribes bordering on the 
Texas Indians would honor Heaven more than 
missionary labors in other parts of Louisiana he 
did not make clear, but it is plain enough that the 
first result of the pacification would be the estab- 
lishment of French posts near or among the Asinai. 
This might or might not honor Heaven, but it 
would undoubtedly interest Spain. 

Father Hidalgo sent an Indian servant with the 
letter to the Asinai country, where it was con- 
fided to a Louisiana Indian who happened to be 
there. Getting no reply, a year later he sent out 
another letter, addressed to the Governor of Loui- 
siana. Neither missive appears to have reached its 
address; but in May, 1713, the first letter — after 
having been handed about among Indians for two 
years — came into Governor Cadillac's possession. 
It interested Cadillac very much, for he had re- 
cently been instructed by Antoine Crozat, to whom 
Louis XIV had granted a monopoly of all the Loui- 
siana commerce, to attempt to open trade with 
Mexico despite the rigorous Spanish commercial 



TEXAS 223 

regulations. Cadillac had already tried by way of 
Vera Cruz and failed. Better luck might follow an 
attempt to open an overland route to the Rio 
Grande border, where Spanish smugglers could be 
trusted to do the rest, for the stupid commercial 
systems of European governments at the time 
made habitual smugglers of all frontier dwellers in 
America. At any rate Hidalgo's letter inspired the 
Governor to make the effort, just as Hidalgo had 
probably surmised it would. 

Cadillac chose his cleverest agent. He sent 
Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, explorer, fur trader, 
and commander at Biloxi, with instructions to visit 
Hidalgo, who, so Cadillac inferred from the letter, 
was among the Asinai, and to build a post on the 
Red River within easy access of their territory. St. 
Denis established the post of Natchitoches, put in 
the winter trading, and by spring was seeking Hi- 
dalgo in Texas. There he learned that the friar was 
on the Coahuila border, so on June 1, 1714, with 
three French companions and twenty-five Indians 
he set out on foot for the Rio Grande. Strangely 
enough, two of his companions were the Talon 
brothers, survivors of the ill-fated La Salle expedi- 
tion who had been ransomed from the Indians by 
Le6n and Teran. On the 18th of July St. Denis 



224 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

reached Hidalgo's mission of San Juan, forty miles 
below Eagle Pass. Hidalgo had gone to Queretaro, 
but the other missionaries and Captain Ramon at 
the post received St. Denis hospitably, and Ramon 
wrote to. Hidalgo that, in view of the French dan- 
ger, "it looks to me as though God would be 
pleased that your Reverence would succeed in your 
desires." This letter reveals Father Hidalgo's fi- 
nesse. While Ramon entertained St. Denis and dis- 
patched messengers to the authorities in Mexico 
City asking what he should do with him, St. Denis 
improved his time by winning the heart of Ramon's 
granddaughter, Manuela Sanchez, who later went 
with him to Natchitoches and there reigned for 
years as the Grand Dame of the post, becoming 
godmother, as the baptismal records show, of most 
of the children of the place. 

A new French menace had arisen. The Viceroy 
of Mexico hastily decided to found new missions in 
Texas and to protect them this time by strong gar- 
risons. St. Denis, having by his marriage and his 
cleverness ingratiated himself with the Spaniards, 
was engaged at five hundred dollars to guide the 
Texas expedition, which was commanded by Cap- 
tain Domingo Ramon, his wife's cousin. It looks 
more like a, family affair than an international 



THE BELFRY OF SAN GABRIEL MISSION. 
CALIFORNIA 

Drawing from a photograph. 




L-r^v^rt. A- 



TEXAS 225 

row. Meanwhile Hidalgo had given the Viceroy 
a satisfactory explanation of his random mis- 
sives and had received permission to go to Texas 
with the expedition. The colony crossed the Rio 
Grande in April, 1716. It consisted of sixty-five 
persons, including soldiers, nine friars, and six 
women, a thousand head of cattle, sheep, and 
goats, and the equipment for missions, farms, 
and garrison. At the head of the missionaries 
went two of Spain's most distinguished men in 
America, Father Espinosa, the well-known his- 
torian, and Father Margil, whose great services 
in the American wilds will probably result in his 
canonization by the Papal Court. The Asinais 
welcomed the Spaniards and helped them to erect 
four missions and a garrison near the Neches and 
Angelina rivers. Shortly afterward a mission was 
built at Los Adaes (now Robeline) Louisiana, with- 
in fifteen miles of St. Denis's post of Natchitoches. 
The success of the French traders with the 
powerful tribes, the coming of John Law's colonists 
to Louisiana, and the need of a halfway base, in- 
spired the Spanish authorities to send out another 
colony, to occupy a site at the beautiful San Pedro 
Springs, on the San Antonio River, which lay on 
the direct route between the Neches River and the 

la 



226 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

settlement at San Juan, near Eagle Pass. Early in 
1718 the new colony, numbering some sixty whites, 
with friars and Indian neophytes, founded San An- 
tonio a few months before New Orleans was born. 
And Father Olivares began the San Antonio, or 
Alamo, Mission, which was later to become famous 
as the shrine of Texas liberty. 

Spain had at last occupied eastern Texas, but her 
hold was not long undisturbed. In the following 
year France and Spain went to war over Euro- 
pean questions, and the conflict was echoed in the 
American wilderness, all the way from Pensacola 
to Platte River. Pensacola was captured by the 
French, recaptured by the Spaniards, and taken 
again by Bienville. The French at Natchitoches 
descended upon Texas and the garrison retreated 
to San Antonio without striking a blow. A plan 
for conquering Coahuila and New Mexico was 
drawn up on paper in Louisiana, perhaps by St. 
Denis. Eight hundred Frenchmen and a large 
body of Indian allies were to march overland from 
Natchitoches, while a flotilla sailed along the Texas 
coast and ascended the Rio Grande. It was La 
Salle's old plan in a new guise. St. Denis was made 
"commander of the River of Canes" (the Colo- 
rado), and two expeditions were sent in 1720 and 



TEXAS 227 

1721 to take possession of Matagorda Bay. Both 
of them failed. 

In New Mexico the Governor had heard, before 
the war broke out, that the French were setthng on 
Platte River and, on his recommendation, the Vice- 
roy ordered that alliances be made with the tribes 
to the northeast, a colony planted at EI Cuarte- 
lejo in Colorado, and a presidio established on the 
North Platte — that is, at some point in the pres- 
ent Nebraska or Wyoming. In August, 1720, an 
expedition from New Mexico penetrated to the 
North Platte but, not finding any signs of a French 
colony, turned back. On the South Platte, in Colo- 
rado, it was almost totally annihilated by Indians 
armed with French weapons. Apparently tribes 
from as far north as Wisconsin took part in this 
fray, a fact which indicates the scope and power of 
the early French trader's influence. The end of the 
war in Europe caused the Viceroy to abandon his 
plans for colonizing to the north of New Mexico. 
The treaty of peace restored Pensacola to Spain. 

Meanwhile afiFairs had moved apace on the Texas 
border. The Marquis of Aguayo, then Governor 
of Coahuila, undertook the reconquest, mainly at 
his own expense. Before the end of 1720 he had 
raised eight companies of cavalry, comprising over 



228 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

five hundred men and five thousand horses. It was 
the largest mihtary expedition to enter the north- 
ern interior since the days of De Soto. Leaving 
Monclova in November, Aguayo strengthened San 
Antonio, and sent a garrison to occupy Matagorda 
Bay. Peace had now been declared, and at the 
Neches River Aguayo was met by St. Denis, who, 
swimming his horse across the stream for a parley, 
informed Aguayo that the war was over and agreed 
to permit an unrestricted occupation of the aban- 
doned posts. Proceeding east, Aguayo reestab- 
lished the six abandoned missions and the presidio 
of Dolores, and added a presidio at Los Adaes, fac- 
ing Natchitoches. The expedition had been a suc- 
cess, but the poor horses paid a terrible price for 
the bloodless victory. The return journey to San 
Antonio, through a storm of sleet, was so severe 
that of his five thousand beasts only fifty were left 
alive when he arrived in January, 1722. 

Aguayo had fixed the hold of Spain on Texas. It 
was he who clinched the nails driven by Leon, Mas- 
sanet, Hidalgo, and Ramon. There were now in 
Texas ten missions, four presidios, and four centers 
of settlement — Los Adaes, Nacogdoches, San An- 
tonio, and La Bahia (Matagorda Bay) . A gover- 
nor was appointed and the capital of the province 



TEXAS 229 

fixed at Los Adaes, now Robeline, Louisiana. Orig- 
inally the name Texas had applied only to the 
country east of the Trinity River, but now the 
western boundary was fixed at the Medina River. 
It was to be moved half a century later to the 
Nueces. After much petty quarreling with the 
French of Louisiana, the little Arroyo Hondo was 
made the eastern boundary, and thus for a century 
old Texas included a large strip of the present 
State of Louisiana. ^ 

For twenty years after the Aguayo expedition, 
the Frenchman St. Denis, or "Big Legs," as the na- 
tives fondly called him, ruled the border tribes with 
paternal sway from his post at Natchitoches on the 
Red River. The relations of French and Spaniards 
on this border were generally amicable. Inter- 
marriages and a mutual love of gayety made friend- 
ship a pleasanter and more natural condition for 
the Latin neighbors than strife. Indeed, when in 
June, 1744, the long career of the redoubtable St. 
Denis came to a close, prominent among those as- 
sembled at Natchitoches to assist in the funeral 
honors were Governor Boneo and Father Vallejo, 

* In 1819, long after French rivalry had passed, the Sabine 
River was made the boundary. It is an error to suppose that it 
was originally the boundary between New France and New Spain. 



230 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

from Los Adaes, across the international boundary 
line. And yet, when, a few days later, Boneo re- 
ported the event to his Viceroy in Mexico, he did so 
in terms which meant, "St. Denis is dead, thank 
God; now we can breathe more easily." 

Spain's hold upon Texas was secure against 
France, but many a battle was yet to be fought for 
the territory with the ferocious Apaches and Co- 
manches, and the incursions of French traders into 
the Spanish settlements continued to be a source of 
friction. The jealous trade policy of Spain only in- 
creased the eagerness of these traders to enter New 
Mexico, where the Pueblo Indians and the colo- 
nists alike were promising customers, if Span- 
ish officers could be bribed or outwitted. For a 
long time the way from Louisiana was blocked by 
Apaches and Comanches, who were at war with 
the Louisiana tribes, and the river highways were 
unsafe. Canadians, however, conspicuous among 
them being La Verendrye and his sons, descended 
from the north through the Mandan towns on the 
Missouri, reaching the borders of Colorado, and 
two brothers named Mallet succeeded in pierc- 
ing the Indian barrier, entered New Mexico, and 
returned safely to Louisiana. The town of Gra- 
cia Real below Albuquerque where they lodged 



TEXAS 231 

was given the nickname of " Canada.'* Later on 
French traders in numbers invaded New Mexico, 
some of whom were seized and sent to Mexico or to 
Spain and thrown into prison. Spanish troops were 
sent to guard the approaches to Chihuahua below 
El Paso; fears were felt for even distant Califor- 
nia; and to keep the New Orleans traders from the 
Texas coast tribes, a presidio and a mission were 
established on the Louisiana border at the mouth of 
the Trinity River, near Galveston Bay. 

But the scene soon shifted. The Seven Years' 
War removed France from the American conti- 
nent, left Louisiana in the hands of Spain, and 
brought Spain and England face to face along the 
Mississippi. 



CHAPTER IX 



LOUISIANA 



The year 1759 was a fateful one in North America, 
for it recorded the fall of Quebec, France's princi- 
pal stronghold in the Western Hemisphere, and the 
accession of Carlos III, the ablest king since Philip 
II, to the Spanish throne.' The second of these 
events tended to offset the results of the first. The 
continued English successes and French disasters 
of 1760 alarmed Carlos, and in 1761 he renewed the 
Family Compact and entered the war as the ally of 
France. In response to the challenge, in August, 
1762, an English force captured Havana. Two 
months later another took Manila. The treaty of 
peace which closed the Seven Years' War restored 
the Philippines and Cuba to Spain, but gave Flor- 
ida to England. By a secret treaty, signed before 
the conclusion of the war, France had transferred 
Louisiana to Spain to save it from England. 
During its brief term under British rule and free 



LOUISIANA 233 

trade Havana prospered as never before; and Car- 
los was not slow to profit by the hint. Carlos in- 
deed saw that to preserve his overseas domain and 
to restore Spain to her former eminence drastic re- 
forms were necessary. From the last days of Philip 
II, Spain's power in Europe had declined, though 
her colonies had expanded in extent and population. 
The policy of absolutism was bearing fruit; and 
the harvest was ruin. While vast expenditures 
of men and money were being made in the con- 
quest of new lands, the nation at home was be- 
ing mangled under the weight of abnormal taxa- 
tion. Industry could not survive and, therefore, a 
sturdy normal growth was impossible. The gal- 
leons brought gold, but it was spent in other than 
Spanish markets. The colonies produced far below 
their capacity because of the jealous restrictions 
imposed on them, and were further hampered by 
grafting officials. These were some of the external 
evidences of a blight that went deeper. Spain had 
kept the minds of her people dark in a day when 
other nations, accepting the challenge of new forces, 
were working out the principles of constitutional 
government and of individual liberty. In clinging 
to a selfish and fictitious ideal and in forcibly mold- 
ing her people to it, she deprived them of the power 



234 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

of initiative and of systematic labor — the power 
which is derived from hope and joy — and so 
rendered them incapable of intellectual supremacy 
in an age differentiated from its predecessors by 
greater freedom and spiritual enlightenment. 

To make amends for the stupidity of his prede- 
cessors, Carlos put forth brave efforts. He lowered 
taxation and instituted measures for the equaliza- 
tion of government. He revived and fostered 
Spanish industries and built up the navy. In less 
than a decade after Carlos's accession, Spain's 
colonial trade tripled and the revenue from the In- 
dies increased from five million to twelve million 
crowns. While he installed economic reforms at 
home and in the colonies, he reorganized the fron- 
tier defenses of New Spain, and under the press of 
danger from England and Russia he extended 
Spain's northern outposts into Louisiana and Cali- 
fornia. Not since the days of Cortes had Spain 
taken so long a forward step in expansion. If, 
with all his energy and foresight, Carlos failed to 
accomplish his larger aims, it was because he came 
too late. Spain's great opportunity had passed, 
and no stroke of magic could free her people from 
the lethargy into which they had fallen. 

Spain acquired French Louisiana by necessity. 



LOUISIANA l4^ 

not by design. l3n October 9, 1762, Louis XV of- 
fered the region to Carlos, who at first rejected the 
gift. But he soon changed his mind, for the value 
of Louisiana as a buffer against England could not 
be overlooked. Carlos deferred actual occupation 
as long as possible; but when he saw England's 
outposts advanced to the Mississippi, her settlers 
pushing over the AUeghanies, and her "long hun- 
ters'* actually crossing the Mississippi, he realized 
that it was time to act. 

The ceded territory embraced New Orleans and 
the western watershed of the Mississippi River. 
Its total population, exclusive of Indians, was es- 
timated at from eight to twelve thousand persons 
of whom over half were negro slaves. The princi- 
pal settlements lay along the Mississippi, the lower 
Red, and the lower Missouri. The bulk of the 
population lay between New Orleans and Pointe 
Coupee; other important settlements in the lower 
district were Balize, Attakapa, Opelousas, Avoyelle, 
and Natchitoches. Farther up were the Arkansas 
Post, St. Charles, and Ste. Genevieve. To the 
west, on the principal streams, there were slender 
trading stations such as the Cadodacho Post, on 
Red River, and Fort Cavagnolle, near where Kan- 
sas City now stands. Still farther in the interior. 



236 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

beyond the pale of civilization, roamed renegade 
Frenchmen and half breeds, who, under the name 
of hunters, had become veritable outlaws. The 
principal occupations of the province were agricul- 
ture and the fur trade. For horses, mules, and 
cattle, dependence was placed on commerce with 
the Indians and Spaniards of the west. Most of the 
stock purchased from the Indians was stolen from 
the Spaniards, and most of the direct trade with 
Spaniards was contraband. 

The inhabitants of Louisiana at this day com- 
bined Spartan simplicity with a touch of courtly 
grandeur. An inventory made in 1769 of the bed- 
room furniture of Madame Villere, wife of a leading 
citizen of New Orleans, is typical. It lists a cypress 
bedstead, with a mattress of corn husks, and one of 
feathers on top; a corn husk bolster; a cotton 
counterpane of home manufacture; six cypress 
chairs, with straw seats; seven candlesticks with 
green wax candles. The house, says Gayarre, 
"must have looked very much like one of those 
modest and unpainted little wooden structures 
which are, to this day [1851] to be seen in many 
parts of the banks of the river Mississippi, and in 
the Attakapas and Opelousas parishes. They are 
tenements of the small planters who own only a 



LOUISIANA 237 

few slaves, and they retain the appellation of Mai- 
sons d'Acadiens.^* But inside these humble dwell- 
ings one sometimes encountered manners that sug- 
gested the ease and grace of the salons of Europe. 
"^ews of the cession to Spain of the French pos- 
sessions caused consternation and protest among 
the settlers. From the Illinois country some of the 
inhabitants, in their desire to escape English rule, 
crossed the Mississippi and settled at St. Louis, 
where La Clede had recently established a trading 
post. Those of lower Louisiana were quite as 
anxious to escape Spanish rule. And they made 
known their wishes right noisily. An assembly 
at New Orleans made up of delegates from all 
the lower parishes drew up a memorial to Louis 
XV and sent it to France; but, in spite of the aid of 
the aged Bienville, the prayer was in vain. Still 
the colonists hoped on, for no Spanish official 
had arrived. 

Hopes were dashed when, on March 5, 1766, 
Juan Antonio de Ulloa arrived at New Orleans as 
first Spanish Governor. Ulloa, a man of nearly 
fifty, was already a well-known scientist and naval 
officer. As a youth of nineteen, then a naval lieu- 
tenant, he had been sent to Peru with a brilliant 
scientific expedition. In the course of his labors 



238 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

there he was twice called to Lima to defend the 
province against the English under Admiral Anson. 
On the way to Europe around the Horn thirteen 
years later, his vessel, after capture by the English, 
escaped and sailed to Canada, where Ulloa was 
captured again. Taken to England, Ulloa was 
there made a member of the Royal Society of Lon- 
don. On his return to Spain he had published his 
now famous reports of the scientific expedition. 

Ulloa arrived at New Orleans in a storm which 
was prophetic of the trouble that lay before him. 
His instructions provided that as little change as 
possible should be made in the administration of 
the colony. It was to be kept distinct from the 
other Spanish colonies, independent of the Council 
of the Indies, and dependent directly on the King. 
He was accompanied by a full corps of officers for 
the new colony, but had only ninety soldiers, for 
Louis XV had promised Carlos that the French 
provincial soldiery, under Aubry, should remain in 
the province as long as they were needed. This 
was a fatal mistake. Carlos should have cleaned 
house and given Ulloa a fair chance, with men 
whom he could command. 

Ulloa was coldly received in New Orleans and was 
soon up to his ears in trouble with the turbulent 



LOUISIANA 239 

and dissatisfied habitants. The fault was not 
one-sided. Ulloa was haughty and was bored by 
the simple people he had been sent to rule. He 
snubbed the Superior Council, a body which had 
thoroughly enjoyed a little authority. The French 
soldiers refused to enter the Spanish service. In 
vain both Ulloa and Aubry urged. Thereupon 
Ulloa gave up the idea of taking formal possession 
and ruled through Aubry, who continued to be 
nominal head of Louisiana. Ulloa commanded and 
Aubry executed. Ulloa held the purse, Aubry the 
sword. At the old posts the French flag continued 
to wave before the breeze. At the same time, Ulloa 
sent his ninety men to erect new posts, at Balize, 
at the Iberville River, opposite Natchez, and in 
Missouri. Over these new posts the Spanish flag 
was hoisted. It was an anomalous situation. 

Ulloa made a census of the province and an ex- 
tended tour of the settlements. At Natchitoches 
he spent some time, inquiring into communication 
with Texas and Mexico. Among numerous be- 
nevolent deeds UUoa's succor of the needy Acadian 
exiles in Louisiana was not the least. But even this 
caused dissatisfaction. 

With their patriotism the French citizens mixed 
solicitude for pocketbook. When Ulloa arrived 



240 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Louisiana was flooded with paper money which had 
depreciated to a fourth of its face value. Ulloa 
generously agreed to redeem it at three-fourths its 
face value, but nothing less than one hundred per 
cent would quiet complaint. Orders soon came 
from Spain which interfered with the ancient me- 
thods of French and English importers. The mer- 
chants appealed to the Council and the orders were 
suspended. Ulloa gave new offense by exiling him- 
self to live for seven months "in a miserable shed" 
at Balize. The discovery that the fifty-year-old 
scholar had been waiting there for his expected 
bride, the Peruvian Marchioness of Abrado, molli- 
fied no one, and, when they moved to New Orleans, 
the Governor's wife and her train of Peruvian girls 
shared the Governor's unpopularity. 

) The intolerable situation came to a head in the 
autumn of 1768. For some time a conspiracy, 
headed by several Frenchmen, had been brewing. 
There is some ground for thinking that the leaders 
of the uprising had been inspired by the hope that, 
by getting control of the government, they could 
evade their debts and otherwise improve their for- 
tunes. Secret meetings were held at the house of an 
adventuress in the suburbs of New Orleans, while 
emissaries worked among the outlying settlements. 



PORTRAIT OF A NATIVE INDIAN OF CALIFORNIA 

Lithograph from a sketch by Captain W. Smyth, R.N. In 
California, a History, by Alexander Forbes (1839). 



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LOUISIANA 241 

On the 27th of October the guns at the gates of 
the city were spiked and the planters and settlers 
entered the city as an armed mob. A council 
called by the insurgents decreed that the Span- 
iards should leave within three days. Aubry re- 
mained faithful to Ulloa and placed him in safety 
on a frigate in the river. But the mob cut the 
cables, and Ulloa, the Marchioness, and her Pe- 
ruvian girls sailed to Havana.! The interior posts 
held by the Spanish soldiery were now abandoned. 
"Thus was the revolution accomplished," says 
Gayarre. "A population, which hardly numbered 
eighteen hundred men able to carry arms, and 
which had in its bosom several thousands of black 
slaves, whom it was necessary to intimidate into 
subjection, had rebelled against the will of France, 
had flung the gauntlet at the Spanish monarchy, 
and was bearding a powerful nation." 

'From Havana Ulloa reported the rebellion to the 
Marquis of Grimaldi. This official remonstrated 
with France for not having punished the insolent 
delegates to the French court. "The loss of great 
interests is looked upon in Spain with indifference 
but it is not so with regard to insults and contumel- 
ies," he said. A Council of State was held, wherein 
the question was raised as to whether Louisiana 

i6 



242 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

should be retained or given back to France^ But 
on this point there was no hesitation. Out of six 
opinions rendered, all but one were emphatically 
for retention. The general view was well stated by 
the Count of Aranda. "The more or less fertility 
and extent of Louisiana is not the principal ques- 
tion to be examined. But we ought to judge of the 
importance of that acquisition, from the fact that 
it extends over Mexican territories to the bank of 
the Mississippi, a well-known barrier and a distant 
one from the population of New Mexico, and that it 
furnishes us, through that river, with an indelible 
line of demarcation between our provinces and 
those of the English, which have been widened by 
their acquisition of our domain in Florida.'* This 
was the kernel of the matter. Just as when Carlos 
III had accepted the gift, Louisiana was needed as a 
barrier to the advancing English, who were already 
crossing the Alleghan^es and had their outposts on 
the Mississippi River. 

[But there was also the matter of Spain's pride, 
which could not be overlooked. The Duke of Alva 
gave an opinion that "bears the stamp of the 
hereditary temper of that haughty and inflexible 
house." The King, he said, should send to Louis- 
iana a man with forces necessary to subject the 



LOUISIANA 243 

people and stamp out disorders. The government 
should be so centralized as to leave the people no 
chance for a repetition of such audacity. "But 
finally, what to my judgment, appears to be of 
more importance than all the rest is, that it be seen 
throughout the world, and particularly in America, 
that the king knows how, and is able, to repress any 
attempt whatever, derogatory to the respect due to 
the royal majesty." Louisiana must be made an 
example to the rest of Spanish America!. 

The man chosen for this grim task was Alejan- 
dro O'Reilly. Like many of Spain's prominent men 
in the eighteenth century, he was an Irishman 
by birth. When a youth he had gone to Spain and 
served in the Hibernian Regiment. In the War of 
the Austrian Succession he had received a wound 
from which he limped the rest of his days. After 
serving in the armies of Austria and France he 
again served Spain in the wars with Portugal. 
Having risen to the rank of Brigadier General, he 
was employed to drill the Spanish army in Austrian 
tactics. In 1763, at the age of twenty-seven, with 
the rank of Major General, he was sent to Havana? 
to reestablish the fortifications which the English 
had ruined. Returning to Spain he became Inspec- 
tor General of the King's Infantry and was made a 



244 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

count. In 1765, by his presence of mind, he saved 
the Hfe of King Carlos during an insurrection. 

When the news came of Ulloa's ejection, O'Reilly 
had been ordered to Havana and Mexico to re- 
view the troops, but his mission was now changed. 
His new orders required him to equip an expedi- 
tion in Havana, go to Louisiana, take posses- 
sion, arrest and try the leaders of the uprising, 
expel all dangerous subjects, and reorganize the 
province. In case of resistance he was authorized 
to use force. "But as the king, whose character is 
well known, is always inclined to be mild and clem- 
ent, he has ordered O'Reilly to be informed that 
his will is that a lenient course be pursued in the 
colony, and that expulsion from it be the only pun- 
ishment inflicted on those who have deserved a 
more severe one." 

While the fate of Louisiana was being discussed 
in Spain, in New Orleans the people gradually de- 
serted their erstwhile noisy spokesmen and turned 
to Aubry for protection. The leaders awaited de- 
velopments in nervous suspense. On July 24, 1769, 
the place was thrown into commotion by word 
that O'Reilly had arrived at Balize with a formid- 
able force. One of the leaders of the rebellion 
stuck a white cockade in his hat, appeared in 



LOUISIANA 245 

the public square, and urged the people to re- 
sist. But it was all in vain. The rebellion had 
faded out. Aubry urged submission. A messenger 
came from O'Reilly, and some of the leading con- 
spirators hastened down the river, tumbling over 
each other to be first to explain themselves and 
promise loyalty. 

O'Reilly's gentle demeanor allayed their fears. 
The Frenchmen were dined and went back "full of 
admiration for his talents, and with good hopes 
that their past faults shall be forgotten." On the 
17th of August the Spanish fleet, full twenty-four 
sails, appeared before New Orleans. Next day 
O'Reilly limped ashore, followed by his entire force, 
twenty-six hundred in number, and took formal 
possession with impressive ceremony. The people 
were both overawed and edified by the spectacle. 
Five times the cry Viva el Rey ! went up from the 
Spanish throats, and five times it was echoed by 
the French soldiery and the populace. All the 
bells pealed forth, and Aubry handed to O'Reilly 
the keys of the city. The fleur-de-lis came down 
and the banner of Spain floated to the breeze. 
O'Reilly then repaired to the cathedral, where the 
solemn ceremony was ended with a Te Deum. 

The day after the ceremony of taking possession. 



246 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

O'Reilly gave a dinner, with great pomp, to Aubry, 
French and Spanish officials, and other important 
personages. Meanwhile he was taking testimony 
in secret. Of Aubry he requested and obtained 
a full report of all the seditious occurrences in the 
colony. Aubry 's eager compliance with this re- 
quest is one of the acts which has lessened his 
fame in the old French colony. 

With the evidence now in hand, O'Reilly's mind 
was made up. Under various pretexts twelve 
leaders were called to his house, arrested, their 
swords taken away, and their property seques- 
trated. While this scene was being enacted the 
house was surrounded with grenadiers. All twelve 
prisoners were lodged in separate places of confine- 
ment, some in vessels on the river, some in well 
guarded houses. One of the twelve, Villere, had 
formerly prepared to flee the province and had then 
changed his mind. Being imprisoned in a frigate, 
he died — some say of frenzy, others of a bullet 
fired by his jailers. To the twelve originally ar- 
rested Foucault and Brand were later added on 
the charge of printing the Memorial of the Planters, 
one of the seditious publications which had ap- 
peared. Foucault refused to answer to the Spanish 
authorities, and, at his own request, was sent back 



LOUISIANA 247 

to France to be tried. On his arrival there he 
was thrown into the Bastile. Brand was released.. 
The arrests and Villere's death caused renewed 
consternation, and numerous colonists planned to 
flee to the English in Florida. Everybody trem- 
bled for his safety. But O'Reilly reassured the 
populace by a proclamation declaring that only 
the leaders should be punished. The oath of alle- 
giance was administered to the inhabitants of New 
Orleans and vicinity. People living in the interior 
were given opportunities later for this ceremony. 
Every one who so desired was given the option of 
returning to France. Most of the inhabitants took 
the oath and remained. 

i^Now followed the trial of the arrested men, an 
event which left a profound impression in the col- 
ony. The prosecuting attorney, Don Felix del 
Rey, was a learned practitioner before the courts 
of Santo Domingo and Mexico, and later Viceroy 
of Mexico. The prisoners rested their defense on 
the ground that Spain had never taken possession 
of Louisiana, hence that Ulloa could not require 
their obedience. Del Rey concluded, in a lengthy 
argument, that the accused were guilty of rebellion. 
On the 24th of October the court rendered the ver- 
dict, and O'Reilly, as president, pronounced the 



248 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

sentence. O'Reilly condemned Lafreniere, Noyan, 
Caresse, Marquis, and Joseph Milhet *'to the or- 
dinary pain of the gallows." The memory of Vil- 
lere, who had died in prison, he condemned "to be 
held and reputed forever infamous." Petit was 
condemned to perpetual imprisonment, Doucet to 
ten years, Boisblanc, Jean Milhet, and Poupet to six 
years each. The property of each was confiscated, 
all those imprisoned were to be banished on release, 
and all seditious publications were to be burned by 
the hangman. 

The friends of the condemned appealed and 
pleaded in vain, for O'Reilly was firm. The exe- 
cution was set for the next day. But no hangman 
could be found. The official executioner of the col- 
ony was a negro, and it was conceded that a white 
man would be more suitable for the task under the 
circumstances. But in spite of rewards offered none 
could be found, and the firing squad was sub- 
stituted for the hangman. The execution took 
place in the public square at three in the afternoon, 
the 25th of October. Next day the seditious Me- 
morial of the Planters was publicly burned. Petit 
and his companions were taken to Havana and im- 
prisoned in Morro Castle. It is pleasant to record 
that soon afterward all were pardoned by Carlos. 



LOUISIANA 249 

Aubry sailed for France, but never reached there, 
for he sank with his ship in the Garonne River — 
an act of retribution, some thought. 
1 .The Spanish commander has ever since been 
known in Louisiana as "Bloody O'Reilly." 

Now for a third of a century Louisiana remained 
under Spanish rule. By 1770 the Spanish flag had 
been raised at all the interior posts, Ste. Genevieve, 
below St. Louis, being the last to haul down the 
fleur-de-lis. Having accomplished his couj> d'Stat, 
O'Reilly was conciliatory and appointed numerous 
old French officers to important positions. Span- 
ish law and administration were installed, though 
the French Black Code was retained. New Or- 
leans was given a cabildo, whose old building is still 
one of the attractions of the ''French" quarter. 
Indeed more than one so-called French relic of the 
old city is Spanish. 

Having put things in order, O'Reilly left Luis de 
Unzaga in charge as Governor. He in turn was 
followed in 1776 by dashing young Bernardo de 
Galvez. Unzaga had winked at the English 
smugglers who monopolized the trade of the low- 
er Mississippi and who were pushing west among 
the tribes of the Gulf Coast. But Galvez began 
his administration by swooping down upon the 



250 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

English smugglers, eleven of whose vessels he 
seized. Nevertheless they continued their trade, if 
less openly than before. They worked among the 
coast tribes, reached Texas overland, ascended the 
Arkansas and Missouri rivers, and worked among 
the tribes of Iowa and Minnesota. Trade in Paw- 
nee and Spanish horses extended even to Virginia; 
Governor Patrick Henry being among the pur- 
chasers of thoroughbred Spanish stock. 
LJp. the attempt to keep the English out of Louis- 
iana, Spanish defense was concentrated on the line 
of the Mississippi. On the other hand, since Louis- 
iana belonged to Spain, the defenses and the mis- 
sions of the old Texas-Louisiana border were with- 
drawn^ The few settlers who lived on the border 
in the Los Adaes district, some five hundred in 
number, were evicted and taken to San Antonio 
(1773). The expulsion of these simple folk from 
their settlement, already over half a century old, 
was one of the pathetic incidents of the American 
border, and reminds one of the expulsion of the 
Acadians from Nova Scotia a few years before. 
Some of the settlers, refusing to be evicted, fled to 
the woods or to the surrounding tribes. Some of 
them, after remaining at San Antonio a year, and 
living at a settlement on the Trinity River five 



LOUISIANA 251 

years, in 1779 took advantage of a flood and Co- 
manche raids, followed their doughty Creole leader, 
Gil Ybarbo, to Nacogdoches, and from there scat- 
tered eastward to their former homes. Today, 
round about Robeline in Louisiana, and San Au- 
gustine in Texas, their descendants still live the 
simple life of their ancestors. 

Louisiana was Spain's first experience in North 
America in a colony previously occupied by Eu- 
ropeans, and in it many departures were made 
from her traditional system. This was especially 
true of her Indian policy. Instead of relying 
for control upon the time honored mission and 
presidio, Spain utilized the French traders al- 
ready among the tribes. But, with Spain's char- 
acteristic paternalism, the service was reorganized 
and much improved. A regular corps of licensed 
traders was installed; vagabonds, outlaws, and un- 
licensed traders were driven from the tribes, pres- 
ents were distributed annually, and medals of 
merit were given to the friendly chiefs. In the 
Spanish days fur traders arose, Frenchmen for the 
most part, whose names are immortal in the West. 
At New Orleans there were Piseros and St. Maxent; 
at Natchitoches, Le Blanc, La Mathe, and Borme; 
at Nacogdoches, Gil Ybarbo; and at St. Louis, the 



252 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Chouteaus, the Robidoux, Lisa, and Glamorgan. 
St. Louis, the Arkansas Post, and Natchitoches be- 
came centers for distributing presents and holding 
councils with tribes living on both sides of the 
Mississippi River. 

Of all the tribes none were more important than 
those of the Red River valley, in the present States 
of Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. 
They had been friendly to the French and hostile 
to Spain, and it was necessary to win them to Span- 
ish allegiance. This important task was assigned 
to Athanase de Mezieres, an old French officer 
in the military service. In recognition of his 
ability as an Indian agent, O'Reilly had put him 
in charge of the district of Natchitoches. For 
ten years he labored loyally at his task. By elo- 
quence, presents, and bluff, he induced most of 
the hostile tribes to make treaties. He toured 
their villages as far as the upper Brazos River, 
and thence marched south three hundred miles to 
San Antonio over an unknown trail. Six years 
later he was called to Texas to prepare the new 
allies for a great campaign of extermination against 
the Apaches, hated foes of both the Spaniards and 
Eastern tribes. 

Tor several years after 1776 the vital question in 



LOUISIANA 253 

Louisiana was the outcome of the American Revo- 
lution. After long hesitation, in April, 1779, Spain 
at last joined the revolting colonies. Her primary- 
aim was not popular liberty, but conquest at the 
expense of England, for she hoped to obtain Gibral- 
tar, Minorca, the Floridas, British Honduras, and 
perhaps the country between the Alleghanies and 
the Mississippi. With lightning speed Galvez, the 
youthful Governor of Louisiana, captured the Eng- 
lish posts on the lower Mississippi. Two years later 
Mobile and Pensacola were at his feet. Meanwhile 
an English expedition from Canada against St. 
Louis by way of Wisconsin had failed (1780) and in 
retaliation a force from St. Louis had run up the 
Spanish flag at St. Joseph, Michigan. Spain had 
frustrated the British attempt to gain control of 
the Mississippi, had enabled George Rogers Clark 
to hold his conquests in the Illinois, and had re- 
covered Florida. Her Anglo-American frontier now 
stretched all the way from St. Mary's River on 
the Atlantic coast to the head of the Mississippi. 

Spain's rule in Louisiana added to her already 
long and illustrious list of trailmakers. Communi- 
cation for defense and trade had to be opened be- 
tween Louisiana and the old outposts of New Spain 
and, at the same time, between San Antonio and 



254 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Santa Fe, which had been cut off from each other 
by the intervening Apaches and Comanches. The 
principal agent in this work was Pedro Vial. Vial 
was sent in 1786 from San Antonio to find a direct 
route to Santa Fe. In spite of a fall from his horse, 
with one companion he made his way to Red River; 
thence westward through the Comanche country to 
Santa Fe. He had found the Comanches friendly, 
but his route was roundabout. Jose Mares found 
a more direct trail to San Antonio (1787) while 
Vial explored from Santa Fe, down the Red and 
Sabine rivers, to Natchitoches, returning thence 
to San Antonio and to Santa Fe by a still more 
direct route than that of Mares. On the journey 
he had traveled farther than from Chicago to San 
Francisco. This tireless pathfinder next explored 
from Santa Fe to St. Louis (1792) returning by 
a route approximating that of the later Santa Fe 
Trail. He had preceded Pike by fifteen years. 
He was not a great diarist, but he was a good 
frontiersman. 

What Mezieres and Vial had done in lower Lou- 
isiana, Clamorgan and his associates now did in 
upper Louisiana. Americans from the Ohio Valley 
and Scotch traders from Canada were invading the 
country in growing numbers. Making their way 



LOUISIANA 255 

by the Des Moines, the St. Peters, and the Assini- 
boine rivers, they traded and even built posts 
among the Omahas, Ariliaras, and Mandans. At 
the same time Russians and British were threaten- 
ing the Oregon coast. To ward off these dangers, 
in 1793 the "Company of Explorers of the Mis- 
souri" was chartered at St. Louis. A prize of 
$2000 was offered to the first person who should 
reach the Pacific by way of the Missouri. Now 
there was a spurt of energy, and by 1797 Trudeau, 
Lecuyer, Mackay, and Evans, in the service of 
Glamorgan's Company, had carried the Spanish 
flag above the Mandan villages in North Dakota. 
But the ambitious schemes of the Company were 
not realized. The Government failed to pay Gla- 
morgan the promised annual subsidy of $10,000 and 
rival traders opposed the Company's monopoly. 
The St. Louis trade, however, continued to de- 
velop, and Lewis and Clark in 1804 found traces of 
Spaniards far up Cheyenne River. 

American traders invaded upper Louisiana and 
the backwoodsmen pressed upon the lower Mis- 
sissippi frontier. To hold them back, Spain in- 
trigued and employed Indian agents, like Alex- 
ander McGillivray of West Florida. Spain denied 
to the backwoodsmen the right to navigate the 



256 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Mississippi, but they protested, intrigued, made 
reprisals, and appealed to the Government, till 
in 1795 their point was gained through diplo- 
macy. Still they kept pressing on across the Mis- 
sissippi. To check their advance, Spain imported 
Canary Islanders and invited British Loyalists to 
settle. Finally she tried counter-colonies formed 
of the Americans themselves. Thus in 1790 Col- 
onel George Morgan crossed over and founded New 
Madrid. Before the end of the century scores of 
other Americans, among them Moses Austin and 
Daniel Boone, had been given liberal Spanish 
grants in the vain hope that they would hold back 
their brethren. By the opening of the new century 
the population of Louisiana had reached fifty thou- 
sand, as against some ten thousand at the end of 
the French regime, and a large part of the increase 
was due to American immigration. 

Napoleon needed Louisiana for his own purposes, 
and in 1800 he took it. Three years later with as 
little ceremony he sold it to the United States. 
Spain now fell back again on her old Texas and 
New Mexico frontier, where the struggle with the 
Anglo-Americans was renewed. They pushed on 
across Louisiana into Texas. Horse drovers and 
traders, hke Philip Nolan, operated in Texas from 



LOUISIANA 257 

the time of the American Revolution. Early in the 
nineteenth century adventurers like Aaron Burr 
and James Wilkinson laid plans for filibustering 
raids. During the Mexican War of Independence 
Americans led expeditions into Texas to aid in the 
struggle for liberty, while others crowded over the 
borders and settled on the bottom lands along the 
Red and Sabine rivers. When Mexico won inde- 
pendence from Spain in 1821, Austin and a host of 
others obtained princely grants of rich Texas soil. 
Fifteen years later the American settlers revolted 
and set up a republic, which, after nine proud years 
of independence was annexed to the United States. 
War with Mexico followed, and in 1848 New Mex- 
ico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Cali- 
fornia went the way of Texas. Five years after- 
wards, the Gadsden Purchase added to the United 
States another slice of the old Spanish domain. 
From Jamestown (1607) to the Gadsden Purchase 
(1853) is a continuous story of the pressure of 
Anglo-Americans upon Hispanic borderlands not 
effectively occupied. On the south the American 
tide stopped at the Rio Grande, finding there a 
bulwark of substantial settlement. 

17 



CHAPTER X 



CALIFORNIA 



The English had made the occupation of Louisi- 
ana imperative. Carlos lifted his eyes to the West, 
and there he saw another menace. Russian fur 
hunters had overrun Siberia to the Pacific by the 
beginning of the eighteenth century. Catherine of 
Russia, continuing the age-old quest for the Strait 
of Anian, in 1725 had sent Vitus Bering, the Dane, 
to seek a northern passage from the Pacific into 
the Atlantic. On his first voyage (1725-1730) he 
discovered Bering Strait, leading, not into the At- 
lantic, but into the Arctic Ocean, where Siberia and 
Alaska all but touch hands. By the close of the 
Seven Years' War Russian fur-trading posts had 
been established on Bering, Kadiak, and Unalaska 
Islands, and Russian vessels were cruising Pacific 
waters southward toward Oregon . Moreover , there 
was the perilous prospect of an English incursion 
overland from Canada or from the Ohio Valley. 

258 



CALIFORNIA 259 

California had been in danger before, and little 
had been done. The Russian menace might have 
ended with correspondence had there not been on 
the frontier a man of action clothed with ample 
powers. This man was Jose de Galvez, the visitor- 
general who had carried out for Carlos reforms in 
New Spain. Galvez not only realized that a crisis 
had arrived but, true to form, he acted; and, while 
settling aflFairs in Lower California, he organized a 
defensive expedition to Alta California. The plan 
was typical of Spain's method of holding and as- 
similating new frontiers. Soldiers and missionaries 
were to go forth, side by side, and plant military 
colonies and missions at San Diego and Monterey, 
then the most celebrated harbors on the coast, for 
the Bay of San Francisco was still unknown. 

To carry out the work Galvez had good material 
ready at hand . The general command was entrusted 
to Don Gaspar de Portola, the newly appointed 
Governor of Lower California. Since the expulsion 
of the Jesuits, the work of converting and civilizing 
the natives there had devolved upon a band of Fran- 
ciscan friars, sons of the missionary college of San 
Fernando, at Mexico City. The president of these 
"Fernandinos" in Lower California, Fray Juni- 
per© Serra, was chosen to guide the banner of the 



260 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

Faith into the new territory, and he would take 
with him five other friars chosen from his missions. 
The expedition, which was under way early in 1769, 
consisted of two passenger vessels and a supply 
ship and two overland parties. 

Owing to errors in latitude made by the earlier 
explorers, the vessels sailed too far north in their 
search for San Diego Bay. The San Antonio 
reached port after fifty-four days at sea. The San 
Carlos was one hundred and ten days on the way, 
and when she entered the harbor her crew were too 
ill from scurvy and lack of fresh water to lower the 
boats. A fortnight was spent chiefly in caring for 
the sick and burying the dead. The supply ship, 
the San Jose, was never heard of again after her 
departure from port in Lower California. 

The land expeditions were much more fortunate, 
though the way was difficult and long. Provisions 
for the journey, horses, mules, and cattle were as- 
sembled at Velicata, a post eighteen leagues beyond 
Santa Maria, the northernmost of the old missions. 

The first of the overland parties set out from 
Velicata on March 24, 1769. It was led by Captain 
Rivera, commander of the company of Loreto. He 
had twenty-five leather jacket soldiers {soldados de 
cuera), three- muleteers, and some forty Indians 



CALIFORNIA 261 

from the old missions, equipped with pick, shovel, 
ax, and crowbar, to open the roads through the 
mountains and across gullies. Along went Father 
Juan Crespi, principal historian of the expedition. 
Rivera's men were declared to be "the best horse- 
men in the world, and among those soldiers who 
best earn their bread from the august monarch 
whom they serve." The cuera, which gave them 
their name, was a leather jacket, like a coat with- 
out sleeves, reaching to the knees, and made of six 
or seven plies of white buckskin, proof against the 
Indians* arrows except at very close range. For 
additional armor they had shields and chaps. The 
shields, carried on the left arm, were made of two 
plies of bull's hide, and would turn either arrow or 
spear. The leather chaps or aprons, fastened to the 
pommel of the saddle, protected legs and thighs 
from brush and cactus spines. 

For the first eight days the trail was that fol- 
lowed by the Jesuit Father Linck, three years be- 
fore. Thereafter, a distance of three hundred miles, 
the route was now explored by white men for the 
first time. Frequently water had to be carried in 
barrels and skin bags (botas), for the Peninsula is 
dry. More than once the animals had to camp for 
the night without water. Sometimes there was no 



262 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

fuel for a camp fire. Several nights were made terri- 
ble by the roaring of a lion. Much of the way was 
over rugged mountains. The wild Indians did 
no harm, but they were occasionally threatening. 
Frequently it rained, and the men spent uncomfort- 
able nights in water-soaked clothing. At last the 
difficult journey came to an end. On the 13th of 
May, scouts from a height saw the masts of the two 
vessels anchored in San Diego Bay. Next day 
their joy was mixed with sadness; the welcome sa- 
lutes and the fond embraces were offset by the sad 
news of the horrible inroads made by scurvy into 
the ranks of the sea party. 

On the 15th of May, the day after Rivera and 
Crespi reached San Diego, Portola and Serra set 
out from Velicata. The season was better, the 
trail had been broken, and the journey was quicker 
than Rivera's. On the last day of June, after a 
march of six weeks, the wayfarers reached San 
Diego. Serra said Mass, the Te Deum was sung, 
and artillery roared salute from the new outpost of 
Church and State. The first band of Spanish 
pioneers on the soil of Alta California, when all 
were assembled, comprised one hundred and twen- 
ty-six souls; ninety-three of the original number 
had perished on the San Carlos or after landing; 



CALIFORNIA 263 

of the Indians, some had deserted on the way, re- 
luctant to leave home. On Sunday, the 16th of 
July, Serra preached to a group of natives made 
happy by little trinkets from his stock, and dedi- 
cated the mission of San Diego de Alcala. Nearby 
the presidio of San Diego was founded. 

The port of Monterey was still to be protected. 
Portola therefore sent the San Antonio back to 
Mexico for men and supplies; then, leaving the San 
Carlos at anchor for want of a crew, he continued 
up the coast by land to complete his task, without 
the aid of the vessels. The march began on the 
14th of July, two days before Serra formally 
founded his mission of San Diego. Ahead rode 
Portola, Fages, Costanso, the friars, six Catalan 
volunteers, and the Indian sappers. Next followed 
the pack train in four divisions, each of twenty- 
five loaded mules, with muleteers and a soldier 
guard. In the rear came Captain Rivera, the rest 
of the soldiers, and friendly Indians driving the 
herd of spare mules and horses. 

Portola and his band rode northward along the 
coast by a route practically that now followed by 
the railroads. Most of the way pasture and water 
were plentiful and the Indians numerous and 
friendly. At Los Angeles River a sharp earthquake 



264 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

shock was felt. "It lasted about half as long as an 
Ave Maria, and about ten minutes later it was re- 
peated, though not so violently." The coast was 
followed without great diflBculty past San Luis 
Obispo to a point near the southern line of Mon- 
terey County. Here the way was blocked by 
rugged Santa Lucia Mountain, whose steep cliffs 
overhang the sea. A halt of several days was 
necessary for Rivera and the scouts to find a way 
through the mountains. The march was continued 
then to the north and northeast for about forty-five 
miles across Nacimiento and San Antonio rivers, 
and down Arroyo Seco to Salinas River, which was 
reached near Soledad. It was one of the hardest 
stretches of country encountered by the early ex- 
plorers of the West. Crespi wrote, "The moun- 
tains . . . are inaccessible not only for men but 
also for goats and deer." Arroyos flowing down the 
gorges had to be crossed innumerable times. From 
a high peak near San Antonio River nothing but 
mountains could be seen in any direction. "It was 
a sad spectacle for us, poor wayfarers, tired and 
worn out by the fatigues of the long journey." 
Some of the soldiers by now were disabled by 
scurvy. "All this tended to oppress our hearts; 
but, remembering the object to which these toils 



CALIFORNIA 265 

were directed, and that it was for the greater glory 
of God through the conversion of souls, and for the 
service of the king, whose dominions were being en- 
larged by this expedition, all were animated to 
work cheerfully." 

Six days down Salinas River took the expedition 
to the shore of Monterey Bay. But Vizcaino had 
told of a "fine harbor." None was found, and Por- 
tola, mystified, concluded that some mistake had 
been made, and that the harbor must be farther 
north. He therefore continued up the coast. As 
the men pressed on through the spacious forests, 
they saw, rank upon rank, the sheer, ruddy trunks 
of giant timber, and they called this new tree the 
yalo Colorado. This is the first historical mention of 
the famous California redwood. At Half Moon Bay 
they saw the Farallones, Point Reyes, and Drake's 
Bay; which last they recognized at once, for it 
was better known than any other point on the 
north coast. Plainly, they had passed Monterey 
and were a long distance out of their course. So 
they pitched camp at Point Pedro, to rest and to 
debate what should be done. And, their food being 
nearly exhausted, some hunters struck into the 
mountains northeast of the camp to look for game. 
The chase, or perhaps only the hope of it, led them 



266 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

upward until presently they came out on a clear 
height and beheld a great quiet harbor, almost land- 
locked, so near together stood the two titanic 
pillars of its one gate, open to the sunset ocean. 
These hunters were the first white men to catch a 
glimpse of San Francisco Bay. 

On the 4th of November, Portola's party de- 
scended to the bay and explored it to its head. 
Then, retracing their route along the coast, they 
again reached Point Pinos and Monterey Bay. 
They planted two crosses, one on Carmel River 
and the other on the bay shore, and continued on 
to San Diego. 

There affairs had gone badly. Fifty persons had 
died and the rest were homesick. During Portola's 
absence they had had a serious brush with the na- 
tives, who had pillaged their huts and stripped the 
invalids of their garments. Provisions were scarce, 
and there was even talk of abandoning the enter- 
prise. But Rivera was dispatched to Lore to for 
stock and supplies, and the pioneers held on as if 
they knew the full meaning of their fortitude. In 
the crisis Serra's faith was superb. "What I have 
desired least is provisions," he wrote. " Our needs 
are many, it is true; but if we have health, a tor- 
tilla, and some vegetables, what more do we want? 



CALIFORNIA 267 

... If I see that along with the food hope van- 
ishes I shall remain along with Father Juan Crespi 
and hold out to the last breath." 

But relief was at hand. To the eyes of the friars, 
who had kept an unceasing vigil of prayer for nine 
days, and to the discouraged Portola, the white 
sails of the San Antonio cleaving the clear blue 
twilight must have seemed as the wings of some 
heavenly visitant, more beautiful than ever ship 
before had spread to the beneficent wind. Alta 
California had been saved from the danger of 
abandonment. Another expedition to Monterey 
was successful and the presidio and mission of San 
Carlos were founded there (1770), near the spot 
where one hundred and sixty-eight years before 
Father Ascension had said Mass under a spreading 
oak tree. 

The Russian menace had been met. Spain's 
frontier had been advanced eight hundred miles. 
That the event was of more than local import was 
generally felt, and the news of it, hurried to Mexico 
by special courier and dispatch boat, was cele- 
brated at the capital. "His Excellency [the Vice- 
roy] wanted the whole population forthwith to 
share in the happiness which the information gave 
him, and therefore he ordered a general ringing of 



268 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

the bells of the cathedral and all the other churches, 
in order that all might realize the importance of the 
Port of Monterey to the Crown of our monarch, 
and also to give thanks for the happy success of the 
expeditions; for by their means the dominion of our 
king had been extended over more than three hun- 
dred leagues of good land." More than this, the 
Viceroy ordered a solemn Mass of thanksgiving 
sung in the cathedral, and attended in person with 
his whole viceregal court. 

Two problems of major importance now engaged 
the authorities — the opening of a land route from 
Sonora and the occupation of San Francisco Bay. 
Thus far supplies had been sent chiefly by ship 
from San Bias to Loreto on the peninsula, thence 
northward by pack train over seven hundred and 
fifty miles of largely arid country to San Diego and 
five hundred and fifty miles farther to Monterey. 
California needed colonists, and the supply ships 
were too small to transport them in any number. 
The soldiers in California, left without their fami- 
lies, chose their companions from among the na- 
tive women and thus grievously hampered the 
work of the friars. Furthermore, a land route 
would reduce the cost of the new settlements to the 



CALIFORNIA 269 

government by opening a way for the transport of 
stock and crops raised abundantly in Sonora. 

The man for the task was found in Juan Bautista 
de Anza, commander of Tubac, an Arizona fort, 
and a frontiersman by birth and training. Anza 
set out from his post at Tubac with a company of 
thirty-four men, including two friars, thirty-five 
mules laden with provisions, sixty-five cattle, and 
one hundred and forty horses — the horses being 
poor animals, as the best of the stock had just been 
run off by the Apaches. He turned southwest, 
crossed the divide, and descended the Altar River 
through the Pima missions to Caborca, the last 
Spanish settlement between Sonora and Father 
Serra's San Gabriel Mission, six hundred miles dis- 
tant. From Caborca his way led through the Pa- 
pago country to the Gila at the Colorado Junction, 
over the waterless Devil's Highway, where men 
and beasts suffered torture from thirst. At the 
junction he made friends with Palma, chief of the 
Yumas, and presented him with a bright sash and 
a necklace of coins struck with the King's image, 
which latter so delighted the naked giant that "he 
neither had eyes enough to look at it, nor words 
with which to express his gratitude." The Yumas 
assisted Anza in crossing the Colorado River and 



270 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

guided him down its farther bank to Santa Olaya 
Lake, on the edge of the great sand dunes of the 
Colorado Desert. 

His guides from here forward were Father Fran- 
cisco Garces, who three years before had crossed 
the Colorado Desert, and Sebastian, an Indian who 
had fled east across the Sierras from Mission San 
Gabriel to Sonora. But the guides lost their way 
and for about a fortnight Anza wandered help- 
lessly among the dunes till at last he encountered 
mountains of sand which the jaded animals would 
not even attempt to pass. When he turned back 
towards Santa Olaya Lake his diflSculties were not 
over; for the blowing sand had wiped out all trails. 
But at last he reached it and there went into camp 
for two weeks, to rest and restore the men and the 
pack animals. The camp was thronged daily with 
the Yumas and their allies. The friars. Fathers 
Diaz and Garces, endeavored to convert the sav- 
ages; and the soldiers, who had a fiddler among 
them, held nightly dances with the Indian girls, 
there on the rim of the desert, defying its menace 
with their jollity. 

Anza left a part of his equipment and some of his 
men with th-e Yumas and went on with the others, 
who had sworn to persevere with him to the end. 



CALIFORNIA 271 

even if they should have to make the coast on foot. 
He went south westward, down the Colorado, seek- 
ing a way round the southern line of the desert. 
He found water and pasturage north of the Cocopa 
Mountains, from which point he veered generally 
northwestward to a pass in the Sierra Nevada 
Mountains. 

This trail of the first white man to cross the 
Sierras is historic. Anza entered the great range 
by way of San Felipe Creek. "The canyon is 
formed by several very high, rocky mountains, or it 
would be better to say, by great heaps of rocks and 
stones of all sizes, which look as though they had 
been gathered and piled there, like the sweepings of 
the world." Continuing up Coyote Canyon, past 
starved Indians living in the cliffs and caves "like 
rabbit warrens," three days after leaving the desert 
he emerged through a rocky pass into Cahuilla 
Valley.^ The desert now gave way to mountain 
verdure. "At this very place," says Anza, "there 
is a pass which I named Royal Pass of San Carlos. 
From it are seen some most beautiful valleys, very 

^ Not Hemet Valley as is generally held. In August, 1920, the 
author and Mr. W. G. Paden, by a personal reconnaissance on the 
ground, demonstrated this error. The rocky pass, called San 
Carlos, today opens into the corral of Rancho de la Puerta, 
owned by Mr. Fred Clark. 



272 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

green and flower strewn; snowy mountains with 
live oaks and other trees native to cold lands. The 
waters, too, are divided, some running on this side 
to the Gulf, and others to the Philippine Ocean." 
Anza crossed the plateau, a distance of some fifteen 
miles, and, little hindered by falling snow on the 
mountains, which turned to mist in the valley, de- 
scended Bautista Canyon and camped on San 
Jacinto River. A few days later, as the Southern 
CaHfornia sunset blazed upon the peaks, Anza 
knocked at the gates of San Gabriel Mission, near 
the future Los Angeles. His march had covered 
some seven hundred miles. He went on to Mon- 
terey and returned from there to Tubac over the 
trail which he had opened, through the Royal Pass 
of San Carlos. 

The Golden Gate could now be protected. Hav- 
ing first been to Mexico City to confer with Viceroy 
Bucarely, on October 23, 1775, Anza led out from 
the rendezvous at Tubac the first colony destined 
for San Francisco. It comprised soldiers, friars, 
and thirty families — in all two hundred and forty 
persons. The type of Spanish colonist to be had is 
amply revealed in Anza's recommendations to the 
authorities. Their pay must be given them in ad- 
vance, because most of them were "submerged in 



SANTA BARBARA MISSION, CALIFORNIA 
Drawing from a photograph. 



.iU}BT§oJorfq « moil gaiweiU 



CALIFORNIA 273 

poverty," and it must be given to them in the form 
of clothing and outfit because, if paid in money, 
they would immediately gamble it all away. The 
list of essentials included — besides arms, horses, 
mules, cattle, and rations — shirts, underwear, 
jackets, breeches, hose, buckskin boots and but- 
toned shoes, capes, hats, and handkerchiefs for the 
men, also ribbons for their hats and their hair; for 
the women, chemises, petticoats, jackets, shoes, 
stockings, hats, rebozos and ribbons; and the items 
of children's needs also concluded with ribbons. 
Spurs, bridle and bit, saddle and saddle-cushion, 
and a leathern jacket (cuera) of seven thicknesses, 
were a few more of each man's requirements. And 
the dole of each family seems to have included all 
inventions known at the time from frying pans 
to blank books! Two hundred head of cattle 
were taken to stock California. In the party were 
three friars. Font, Garces, and Eixarch. Garces, 
who had accompanied Anza to San Gabriel on his 
first journey, and Eixarch, were to remain with the 
Yuma Indians at the mouth of the Gila. Font 
went as diarist and astronomer. The Gila was 
reached on the 28th of November without other 
grave mishap than the death of a woman in child- 
birth. Six days were spent at Yuma, the junction 

l8 



274 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

of the Gila and the Colorado, because of illness 
among the women, and because of the necessity of 
installing Garces and Eixarch among their chosen 
flock. Anza ordered a cabin erected for the fri- 
ars and their servants and stocked it with provi- 
sions for four months. Chief Palma aided with 
all the weight of his great authority. Such was the 
beginning of white settlement at Yuma. 

On the 4th of December Anza resumed his jour- 
ney. Some of his horses had died from the cold, 
and there were eleven sick persons in the party. 
At Santa Olaya Lake he divided his expedition into 
three relays, to march on different days, in order to 
save the scant water holes in the desert country 
ahead. In his conferences with Palma, whom he 
had now rendered ecstatic by the gift of a Spanish 
military costume, Anza must have learned more 
about the way over the sand dunes; for, leading the 
first detachment in person, he struck out straight 
ahead across the desert. In three days he reached 
the cool wells of Santa Rosa, and, two days later, 
camped at San Sebastian, near the pass into the 
mountains. Here he awaited the remainder of his 
party. When the other detachments came up, the 
colonists were ill from cold and thirst, and the two 
hundred cattle had been without water for four 



CALIFORNIA 275 

days. The horses were badly worn. Just before 
leaving Tubac the Apaches had stolen fifteen hun- 
dred head, and most of the emigrants had come 
without change of mounts, in some cases with 
two or three children on a single horse. Hence- 
forth some went on foot. But human nature is 
buoyant. And the reunion at San Sebastian was 
celebrated with a noisy dance. A bold widow 
sang a naughty song; her paramour punished her; 
Anza reprimanded the man, and Father Font 
reproved Anza. 

Anza's cavalcade turned northwestward now 
and crossed the Sierras by way of the path he had 
discovered on his former journey. The snow-cov- 
ered mountains extended a chilly reception to the 
colonists, who came from semi-tropical Sonora and 
Sinaloa. The women wept, but Anza dried their 
tears. In the deep canyon on Christmas eve, a 
child was born, the third extra colonist to enter the 
ranks of the expedition since the departure from 
Tubac. On the way up the mountain slope over 
ninety head of cattle died from cold and exhaus- 
tion. Just at San Carlos Pass a severe earthquake 
shock was experienced by the weary band. The 
intrepid Anza — Tomiar, or Big Chief, the Cahuil- 
las called him — had intended to break trail from 



276 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

the pass to Monterey without touching at San Ga- 
briel, but the condition of his party and the stock 
made this plan impracticable. Where Riverside 
now stands he crossed the Santa Ana River on the 
bridge built by himself two years before and led his 
colonists into the precincts of San Gabriel on Jan- 
uary 4, 1776. Two months later he had brought 
them to Monterey. 

Anza explored the shores of San Francisco Bay 
and selected sites for a presidio and a mission and 
then returned to Sonora. The march of over a 
thousand miles, which he had led, was one of the 
longest overland migrations of a colony in North 
American history before the settlement of Oregon. 

It is worthy of note that even while Don Juan 
Anza reconnoitered San Francisco Bay for a site 
whereon to erect the outward signs of absolute 
monarchy, the Liberty Bell at Philadelphia three 
thousand miles away proclaimed the signing of 
the Declaration of Independence; and that within 
seventy-j&ve years San Francisco was to become 
the western gateway of the new American nation. 

The presidio of San Francisco was founded in 
September and the mission in October, 1776. Next 
year one of Anza's lieutenants founded San Jose, 
some miles to the south, close to the mission of 



CALIFORNIA 277 

Santa Clara. Four years later a second body of 
colonists came over Portola's route and founded 
the pueblo of Los Angeles. The year 1782 saw 
the founding of Santa Barbara. Thus Spain had 
made good her hold on California at four strategic 
points, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and 
San Francisco, having meanwhile pushed explora- 
tion by sea up the present Oregon and British Co- 
lumbia coasts with an eye always to Russian and 
English activities. Spain was much disturbed to 
find that England, who should have been fully 
occupied with the Revolutionary War in America 
and the defense of her frontiers from the English 
Channel to India against the combined power of 
France and Spain, had yet found time to send an 
explorer. Captain Cook, into North Pacific waters.' 

Of names illustrious in the pioneer mission field 
of America none is more renowned than Junipero 
Serra. If, as in the case of Serra, we are disposed 
to think that the biographies of some of the pioneer 
padres, written by members of their own Order, 
may be too colored with hero worship to be strict- 
ly historical, let us remember at the same time 
that only men capable of arousing exalted affection 

' See Adventurers of Oregon in this Series. 



278 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

and admiration could tempt their memorialists in- 
to this extravagance. In his character, it is plain, 
Serra was gentle, loving, and selfless. Like Kino, 
he had distinguished himself in the Old World and 
had turned his back upon honors to enter the la- 
borious and perilous life of a missionary to savages. 
It was a life that promised little but hardship, dis- 
appointment, danger, to be cut short, perhaps, by 
a death of agony at the hands of those he sought to 
save. Whatever might be the worldly policies of 
governors and ecclesiastics pertaining to the re- 
sults of his labors, the true missionary himself was 
moved by two separate motives — a passion for 
his Faith and a yearning towards those whom he 
deemed eternally lost without it. His humanity as 
well as his zeal found exercise in a fatherly interest 
in the children of the wilderness and in efforts to 
teach them innocent games and pleasures in the 
place of some of their native amusements which 
were less moral. To learn their various languages 
— and Indian languages are among the most diflS- 
cult to master — to coax them into habits of indus- 
try, to make them love labor and strict virtue as 
well as the Catechism — required infinite patience 
and kindness no less than a heart staunch against 
all fear. 



CALIFORNIA 279 

Such a blend of zeal and humanity was seen 
in Junipero Serra. Withal, he was an organizer 
and executive. All in all, indeed, Serra was the 
outstanding Spanish pioneer of California. Dur- 
ing the fifteen years of his labors there, he super- 
vised the founding of nine permanent missions 
of the twenty-one which the Franciscans built in 
the Golden State before secularization undid the 
work of their Order. ' San Diego was the first, but 
the more famous was San Carlos at Carmel, where 
Serra lived until his death in 1784. The present 
San Carlos, which has been preserved and is still 
regularly used for services, was begun on the 
same site in 1793. The little congregation which 
gathers there now answers no longer to the descrip- 
tions left us by visitors of long ago — such as those 
of the Frenchman La Perouse, who saw the original 
building, the English discoverer, George Vancouver, 
and, later, the Boston seaman and writer, Rich- 
ard Henry Dana. Then, along the five-mile road 

'San Diego, 1769; San Carlos, 1770; San Gabriel, 1771; San 
Antonio de Padua, 1771; San Luis Obispo, 1772; San Juan Capi- 
strano, 1776; San Francisco de Assisi, 1776; Santa Clara, 1777; 
San Buenaventura, 1782; Santa Barbara, 1786; La Purisima 
Concepcion, 1787; Santa Cruz, 1791; Soledad, 1791; San Juan 
Bautista, 1797; San Fernando, 1797; San Miguel, 1797; San Jose, 
1797; San Lufs Rey, 1798; Santa Inez, 1804; San Rafael, 1817; 
San Francisco Solano, 1823. 



280 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

leading from Monterey, the capital, to Carmel, 
passed the magnificent Governor and his uniformed 
escort, cahalleros in slashed and gilt-laced panta- 
loons and brilliant serapes, staid senoras shrouded 
in black lace mantillas yet keeping an eye on their 
daughters, whose glances, decorous but eager, roved 
over the rim of the cart as some hero with jingling 
spurs curvetted past, peasants under their huge 
sombreros^ gray-gowned friars in sandals, Indian 
muleteers and vaqueros, and Indian laborers in their 
coarse dull cotton smocks. Scarlet, gold, and blue 
hvened the black and white and tawny brown in 
the costuming of this frequent procession, which 
made its way along the shore of a sea sapphire and 
amethyst and spread with the hammered gold of 
the kelpfields, on through the green slopes, on 
among the giant columns of the Carmel pines, to 
San Carlos, on the hill above the river, with red- 
tiled roof and belfry and thick bluish stone walls. 
In Serra's day there was only a small adobe church 
beside the orchards of olives and fruit trees which 
he planted. Half a stone's throw from the church 
Serra dwelt in a cell furnished with a chair and a 
table, a bed of boards, and the blanket which cov- 
ered him when he slept. Nearby rose a high cross 
and, at dawn and often through the day and night, 



CALIFORNIA 281 

he knelt at its foot in prayer. It was, says Father 
Palou, Serra's pupil, friend, and biographer, "his 
companionship and all his delight." Under the 
shadow of the cross in his cell, attended by his dis- 
ciple Palou, Serra died. From near and far, the In- 
dians who venerated him came to strew his plain 
coffin with flowers. And they wept bitterly that 
their Padre, now silent in death, would never again 
greet them with his habitual tender admonition, 
*'amar d Bios'* — to love God. 

Aided by other devoted Franciscans, Serra had 
accomplished much according to the plan which he 
held to be essential to the welfare of the Indians. 
Along the fertile coast valleys from San Diego to 
San Francisco stretched a chain of missions, some 
seated so that the limits of one mission's lands 
touched upon the borders of the next. Grain fields, 
vineyards, olive groves, and orchards flourished, 
cared for by native labor under Indian overseers. 
Indian herdsmen tended the great flocks of sheep 
and the droves of cattle and horses. Each mission 
with its lands and its Indians formed a type of pa- 
triarchal state under the padre's rule backed by the 
soldiery. Under the new regime, which curbed 
every native instinct and changed the whole fash- 
ion of their lives the Indians decreased. But, while 



282 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

it is easy to pick flaws in the mission system of deal- 
ing with the Indians, it is not so easy to point to 
any other system which has done better. The 
problem of civilizing a wild people has baffled 
others than the padres. 

In the policy of the Government regarding the 
missions and in the plans of the friars, the Indian 
was the central idea. Both looked to his conver- 
sion and civilization. The Government intend- 
ed, after a reasonable period, to take over the 
missions, turn them into pueblos under civil juris- 
diction, each church to become a curacy of the 
diocese, and to allot land to the Indians, who were 
to be no longer neophytes under patriarchal domi- 
nance, but citizens living independent lives under 
the rule of the state. The mission lands did not 
belong to the friars, whose vows of poverty pre- 
cluded their holding property. The usufruct was 
theirs to manage, as stewards and administrators 
salaried by the Crown but having themselves no 
titles to the occupied territory. The friars were 
not in sympathy with the governmental desire pre- 
maturely to secularize the missions and thus to ex- 
pel the missionaries, or to confine the activities of 
those who might remain to purely spiritual af- 
fairs. It is conceivable that they did not wish to 



CALIFORNIA 283 

resign their temporal powers; and it is certain that 
they did not beheve that the Indians would be 
benefited by the change. With all their energy, 
therefore, the friars resisted secularization. 

A decree passed by the Spanish Cortes in 1813, 
but not published in California until January, 1820, 
ordered the friars immediately to "cease from the 
government and administration of the property" 
of the Indians; but a vigorous controversy halted 
its execution. After the revolt from Spain, the" 
Mexican Government enacted laws of the same 
tenor, looking, as some say, to the emancipation of 
the Indians and to their participation in the life of 
the state as citizens, or, as others put it, to the con- 
fiscation of the mission lands. The immediate re- 
sult was confusion, waste, and destruction. The 
Indians did not comprehend the new measures, said 
to be designed for their progress. They accepted the 
views of the friars that a great evil was being com- 
mitted by the new republican Government. To 
oppose that Government some at least of the mis- 
sion Indians had been armed and drilled under the 
direction of their padres, whose sympathies were 
strongly royalist. Not understanding that the 
lands and herds which they had tended were now 
legally to become their own, and believing only 



284 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

that they and their padres were to be robbed of 
them, they plunged into a furious destruction of 
live stock and other property. Helpless to cope 
with the situation, the new Government ordered a 
temporary restoration of the old system. But the 
trouble did not abate. Dishonest oflBcials, eager 
only to possess themselves of the valuable lands 
destined for the Indians, added to the complexity 
of the problem. Settlers intruded into the mission 
valleys and took up holdings. Natives helped 
themselves to stock and ran off to distant rancher- 
fas. By 1843, five of the missions at least had been 
entirely deserted. In 1845 a proclamation pro- 
vided for the rental or sale of the missions. The 
abandoned buildings were to be sold at auction. 
The surplus property of others was to be sold and 
the buildings rented. This order had not been 
fully carried out when the flag of the United States 
was raised at Monterey on July 7, 1846. Under 
American regulations, the mission buildings with 
an adequate amount of land were restored to the 
Church. The surplus land reverted to the Govern- 
ment. So, in the end, the Indians possessed noth- 
ing. Retreating before the inrush of white settlers, 
they went back to their wild life, far less able to 
cope with its conditions after some fifty years of 



CALIFORNIA 285 

civilization and strict religious discipline. A few of 
the friars remained till they died to care for the 
spiritual welfare of their scattered and diminished 
flocks. The majority departed for other mission 
fields or returned to their monasteries in Mexico 
and Europe. 

The missions, some of them intact, others in va- 
rious stages of decay, or of restoration through the 
activities of the Landmarks Club of California, 
remain as monuments, not alone to the friars who 
designed them, but also to the Indians who built 
them. The natives, instructed by their padres, 
made those adobe bricks and quarried those great 
stone blocks and piled them into the high walls 
several feet in thickness, into the tall pillars, the 
rounded arches, the belfry towers and the solid 
courtyards of buildings covering, in some instances, 
enormous sites. San Luis Rey, the largest of 
the missions, built of adobe, had a corridor of 
thirty-two broad arches opening upon its patioy 
which was about eighty yards square. Nearly 
three thousand Indians peopled the adjacent vil- 
lage, tilled the mission's lands and herded its stock; 
and, in the evenings, a native band of forty pieces 
played for the delectation of their tribesmen and 
their padres. The Indians built roads and bridges 



286 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

under the tutelage of the friars, some of whom had 
been architects and engineers, prior to taking vows 
Indians baked the dusky red tiles for the roofs. 
They carved the altar pieces and pulpits, the door- 
posts and lintels; they made the moldings and em- 
ployed their primitive native art in the brilliantly 
colored frescoes which still adorn some of the inte- 
rior wells. They hewed and smoothed the great 
beams for the ceilings and grooved them into place; 
and they wrought the stone bowls for font and 
fountain and set them on their adobe pedestals. 
Patient teaching and faithful labor wrought for 
beauty and God. 

The architecture combined something of the 
Moresque, the Roman, and the Old Spanish, and 
was perhaps influenced by the Aztec, certainly was 
influenced by the needs and inspirations and the 
climatic conditions of a virgin country and by the 
materials at hand for building. The result was an 
original style, massively beautiful and harmonious 
with the landscape. Santa Barbara is a famous ex- 
ample. It never suffered ruin ; it is, in fact, the only 
mission in California which, from its earliest days, 
has never been untenanted by Franciscans. 

Some of the ruined missions suffered their first 
blows, not from secularization, but from the severe 



CALIFORNIA 287 

seismic shocks of 1812 — el ano de los temblor es. 
Chief of these was the vast cruciform building of 
San Juan Capistrano, which succeeded the small 
mission built by Serra. Before its ruins, in point of 
beauty, even the unblemished pile of Santa Bar- 
bara must give way. The great cross, shattered 
now, with its church, monastery, convent, and 
workshops and its wings of corridors outlined, was 
erected of gray stone and was hardly less than a 
decade in building. On a mountain several leagues 
away the great timbers for the beams were hewn. 
The stone came from a quarry six miles distant. 
The huge blocks were transported by the mission 
Indians, numbering roughly a thousand, in crude 
bullock-carts; the smaller blocks men, women, and 
even children carried on their heads. Back and 
forth in the daylight hours, year after year, the In- 
dians of Capistrano trod the long way to bring the 
stone that should build an imperishable shrine. 
Imperishable, in one sense, it is; but its structure, 
completed in 1806, stood unmarred for only six 
years. One of the uninjured rooms of the convent 
was converted into a chapel. Services are held 
there and the parish priest lives at the mission. 

About San Juan Capistrano, even today, lingers 
the fragrance of the past. In the little seaside 



288 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

village, Spanish, with Mexican accent, Basque, and 
Portuguese are more commonly heard than English. 
In fact, English is seldom heard. The sombrero 
frequently, and even an occasional dingy and 
frayed scrape, may be seen in the groups of swarthy 
skinned men lounging and smoking in the sun. 
Not far from the railway — which connects San 
Diego with Los Angeles by a swifter route than the 
old trail of the padres — in the mouth of the valley, 
the majestic ruin stands. Gone is the high bell- 
tower, once visible, so it is said, from ten miles 
away. The roofs have crumbled in places, and the 
gray walls and the thick square columns of the 
arches are fissured from the temblor which de- 
stroyed the lofty church and crushed out the lives 
of several hundred worshipers. Grasses and 
weeds push their way through the broken floorings 
and riot with the blazing California poppy in the 
patios. Busy little birds, swift of wing and inces- 
sant in song, pop in and out of a village of nests in 
the deserted corridors. Lazy doves, bronze and 
blue and snow-white, float up from the street along 
the sparkhng bay to sun and plume themselves on 
the ruined arches. And the lizard, though unat- 
tended by the lion, keeps the court. But the 
dark vulture, wheeling above San Juan, wings 



CALIFORNIA 289 

slowly on; for the stillness here is too old to be 
of the dead. It is the placidity of beauty, which 
is immortal. 

In their pagan days the Indians of Capistrano 
honored the moon. Padre Boscana has preserved 
in his writings the refrain of the song sung at the 
feast and dance with which they greeted her: "As 
the moon dies and comes to life again, so we, hav- 
ing to die, shall live again." Night is still the feast 
of beauty at Capistrano. It is a feast kept now in 
silence — with the stately dance of a tribe of shad- 
ows moving through the arches to the slow rhythm 
of the rising moon. So does a vanished people 
"live again" in the supreme loveliness of their 
wrecked handiwork. 

Colonization in California proceeded steadily, 
if slowly. California was far away and equally 
good lands could be had in Mexico. Spaniards 
lacked some of the incentives which stirred Eng- 
lishmen to emigrate to the shores of the Atlantic. 
They attained to little greater degree of personal 
freedom and little larger share in their own govern- 
ment in a frontier presidio than in the City of Mex- 
ico or in Seville. Distance, of course, often made 
them independent for a time. But the heel of 

19 



290 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

absolutism was on their necks wherever they went, 
and those who came lacked incentives to energetic 
industry. The land was too fertile; too much was 
done for them. Colonists were paid a salary for a 
term of years, given lands, stock, tools, in fact 
every necessary but the normal stimulus to labor. 
In California, where the climate compelled no 
measures of protection and the soil produced 
abundantly without urging, the spirit of dolce far 
niente possessed the settlers. Even the later com- 
ing of well-to-do families, who boasted the purest 
blood of Spain, made little change in the life of 
happy, sunny ease. Sheep and cattle increased, 
roamed the green valleys and found their own 
sustenance, with little effort on the part of their 
owners. Olive trees, introduced by the padres, 
flourished; and grain yielded from fifty to a hun- 
dredfold from a single sowing. Why work.?* Why 
be "progressive".'* The implements used in cul- 
tivation were of the most primitive design. As 
late as '49 the Calif ornians were ploughing, and 
happily, with an iron point attached to a crooked 
branch. The labor of field and range was done by 
Indians for a share of the produce. The lord of the 
hacienda was chiefly engaged in riding, in gam- 
bling, dancing, in visiting or receiving his friends, or 



CALIFORNIA 291 

attending bull and cock fights. There was indeed 
little else for him to do. The Government did not 
solicit his cooperation. He might, and often did, 
stir up a little revolution. If he had a mind to 
trade, he must pay a tithe on all transactions; and 
there were no markets for his stock, so that fre- 
quently he must slaughter great numbers of sheep, 
cattle, and horses to reduce his herds. He was not 
always devout, but he obeyed perfunctorily the 
laws relative to religious observances and left the 
rest to the virtue and piety of his women. Intel- 
lectually, his life was perforce sterile; for California 
was isolated; books there were none, and education 
was not greatly encouraged. Reversing the pro- 
verbial admonition, he seldom did today what he 
could put off till tomorrow: manana was time 
enough for a task; now was for pleasure. And no 
pleasure was keener than bestriding a fine horse. 
His days were lived in the saddle; and his feats of 
horsemanship provoked the envy and admiration 
of early American and European travelers who 
have recorded them. To the end of Mexican days 
the Californians sustained the reputation brought 
by Rivera's men at the birth of the province — 
"the best horsemen in the world." 

Though changing fashions in the outside world 



292 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

affected the dress of the upper class, the Califor- 
nians, generally, clung to their own style of garb. 
The caballero who rode forth to take part in one of 
the numerous fiestas at Monterey or San Jose was 
attired in a jacket trimmed with scarlet, a brightly 
colored silk sash, velvet pantaloons slashed below 
the knee and laced with gilt, embroidered shoes, a 
sombrero sporting a band of embroidery or ribbon 
under which his head was tightly bound with a 
black silk handkerchief. A serape was draped 
about his shoulders; his long hair was braided in a 
queue and tied with ribbons. Ribbons and jingling 
bits of metal on bridle-reins and stirrups added to 
the pride of his high-mettled horse. The sloe-eyed 
maid who challenged him to dance by breaking on 
his head a cascaron — an eggshell filled with gold 
and silver paper, or scented water — would be ar- 
rayed in white muslin smock and petticoat flounced 
with scarlet — her arms bare and her trim ankles 
visible — scarlet sash, shoes of velvet or of blue 
satin; and a gay rebozo or cotton scarf, in the man- 
agement of which she would display an infinite 
number of enticing and graceful gestures. When 
the day's sports were over, the thin sweet twanging 
of guitars would call caballero and senorita to the 
dance, until, by ones and twos and whispering, 



CALIFORNIA 283 

laughing groups, the merrymakers flitted home 
Hke shadows across the plaza which lay white as 
pearl in the drenching light of the southern moon. 

The houses of the well-to-do in country or in 
town were built about a court. The rooms opened 
on a corridor which ran round the court, where 
usually brilliant flowers grew and a fountain sent 
up its rainbow sparkle. The poorer ranch houses 
were of the plainest design and ill-furnished. The 
people lived out of doors and gave little thought to 
the interior of their dwellings. They built their 
large rambling one-story houses of adobe with red 
tile roofs, sometimes coating the outside walls with 
whitewash and the inner with plaster. The poorer 
houses had no floors but the hard earth and no 
furniture except a chair or two with rawhide seats, 
a bed of the same material, and a wooden bench 
which was fixed along the wall. The hacienda was 
overrun with Indian servants, frequently hired 
from the missions, who did whatever work the 
benign sun and soil had left for human hands 
to do. 

But if the Californian was idle and, as the padres 
sometimes complained, not over-virtuous, he was 
kindly and hospitable to a fault. His house and 
all he possessed were free to friend and stranger for 



294 THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS 

a day or a year. No guest could wear out a Cali- 
fornian's welcome. If the guest were a poor man, 
on the day of his departure he would find a little 
heap 'of silver coins in his room from which he was 
thus silently bidden to ease a need his host had too 
much delicacy to mention. Horses would be pro- 
vided for his journey to the next hacienda, where 
he would meet with the same treatment. 

It was the opinion of travelers of that time that 
the Cahfornians were superior to other Spanish 
colonists in America, including the Mexicans. And 
the superiority was variously ascribed to the greater 
degree of independence, social at least if not politi- 
cal, which they had attained through their far re- 
moval from Mexico and their lack of intercourse 
with the other colonies; and to the fact that, after 
the first settlements were made, the great majority 
of new colonists were of good Castilian blood; and 
to the influence of California itself. However that 
may be, the life of the Cahfornians presented 
phases not always seen in Spanish colonies. The 
beauties and graces of the Spanish character flow- 
ered there; and the harsher traits were modified. 
Perhaps the Californian bull fight may be cited 
as typical of this mellower spirit, for it lacked 
the sanguinary features which characterized the 



CALIFORNIA 295 

national sport in Mexico and Spain. The quarry 
retired from the arena not much the worse for 
a chase which had served chiefly to exhibit the 
dexterity and horsemanship of the toreador. 

After the inrush of Americans, who, paradoxi- 
cally enough, stumbled upon the gold which Span- 
iards had vainly sought, this leisurely life inevi- 
tably passed away. California of our time com- 
memorates the day when a people possessed by the 
energy of labor came to the Golden Gate. But it 
still bears, indelibly stamped upon it, the imprint 
of Spain. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

No single work covers the entire field of this book. 
Numerous topics are well treated in Justin Winsor, 
Narrative and Critical History of America, volumes ii 
and III (1889), whose bibliographies are even better 
than its essays. Broad in scope and scientific in spirit 
are John Gilmary Shea's History of the Catholic Mis' 
sions Among the Indian Tribes of the United States, 
1529-185Jt (1855), and The Catholic Church in Colonial 
Days, 1521-1763 (1886). Original documents cover- 
ing a wide range of subjects for the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries are contained in Pacheco and 
Cardenas {et al.), Coleccion de Documentos ineditos, 
Relativos al Descuhrimiento, Conquista, y Colonizacion 
de las Posesiones Espanoles, 42 vols. (1864-1884), and 
Coleccion de Documentos InSditos de Ultramar, segunda 
serie, 13 vols. (1885-1900). 

A number of works, though not general, deal with 
considerable portions of the field. For the Atlantic sea- 
board there is Peter J. Hamilton, The Colonization of 
the South (1904). In Spanish there is Don Gabriel de 
Cardenas Z. Canos (anagram for Don Andres Gonzalez 
Barcia), Ensayo Cronologico para la Historia General de 
la Florida (1723), which, though annalistic, is broader 
in scope than any subsequent treatment of Florida. It 
covers the Atlantic and Gulf areas from 1512 to 1722. 

297 



298 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

The Southwest is best covered by the various vol- 
umes of Hubert Howe Bancroft's Works. The parts 
relating to the Spaniards, which were written mainly 
by Henry Oak, are an unsurpassed mine of information. 
A popular introduction to Spanish activities in the 
Southwest, vigorous and entertaining in style, is 
Charles F. Lummis, Spanish Pioneers (1893). The 
same region is covered with emphasis on coloniz- 
ing methods in Frank W. Blackmar, Spanish Institu- 
tions of the Southwest (1891). An excellent eighteenth 
century work in Spanish is Juan Domingo de Arri- 
civita, Chronica Serdfica y Apostolica del Colegio Pro- 
paganda Fide de la Santa Cruz de Queretaro (1792), 
It was written by an official chronicler who had been 
a missionary in Texas. A general documentary collec- 
tion is Herbert E. Bolton, Spanish Exploration in the 
Southwest, 154S-1706 (1916). 

Early Exploration. Aside from these few general 
and regional works, most of the materials are special, 
and can be listed according to the chapters of this book. 
Early sixteenth century explorations are admirably 
treated in Woodbury Lowery, Spanish Settlements 
Withi7i the Present Limits of the United States, 1513- 
1561 (1901). Popular accounts of the exploration of 
Florida are Graham, Hernando de Soto (1903), Grace 
King, De Soto and his Men in the Land of Florida (1898), 
and, though old, Theodore Irving, The Conquest of 
Florida by Hernando de Soto (1835). The standard 
treatise on Coronado is George Parker Winship, The 
Coronado Expedition, 1540-15^2 (Fourteenth Annual 
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1896). Contempo- 
rary narratives are contained in Hodge and Lewis, 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 299 

Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States {Orig- 
inal Narratives of Early American History, 1907); Ad. 
F. and Fanny Bandelier, The Journey of Cabeza de 
Vaca (Trail Makers Series, 1905); Pedro Castaneda 
and others, The Journey of Coronado (Trail Makers 
Series, 1904), edited by George Parker Winship. Ed- 
ward Gaylord Bourne, Narrative of the Career of Her- 
nando de Soto (Trail Makers Series, 1904) ; Buckingham 
Smith, Coleccion de Varios Documentos para la Historia 
de la Florida (1857). Garcilaso de la Vega, La Florida 
del Ynca (1605). 

Early Florida. Menendez de Aviles is the theme 
of Woodbury Lowery's second volume, Spanish Settle- 
ments Within the Present Limits of the United States, 
1562-157 Jf (1905). A graphic and scholarly account 
of the expulsion of the French by Menendez is given by 
Francis Parkman in his Pioneers of France in the New 
World (1865). Documentary collections are E. Ruidiaz 
y Caravia, La Florida, su Conquista y Colonizacion por 
Pedro Menendez de Aviles (1893), and Genaro Garcia, 
Dos Antiguas Relaciones de la Florida (1902). 

New Mexico. Spanish New Mexico can be studied 
in Hubert Howe Bancroft, Arizona and Neio Mexico 
(1888), and Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Leading Facts 
of New Mexican History, vol. i (1911). Antiquated but 
useful is W. W. H. Davis, Spanish Conquest in New 
Mexico (1869). Mission antiquities are treated in L. 
Bradford Prince's beautifully illustrated Spanish Mis- 
sion Churches of New Mexico (1915) . The authority on 
the Pueblo Revolt is Charles W. Hackett, who has 
published several scholarly papers on the subject. 



300 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

based on manuscript materials, in the Southwestern 
Historical Quarterly and Old Santa Fe. An excellent 
regional study is Anne E. Hughes, Beginning oj Span- 
ish Settlement in the El Paso District (1914). A contem- 
porary account of Onate's work by an eyewitness is 
Gaspar de Villagra, Historia de la Nueva Mexico (1610), 
which is written in verse. A rare picture of New Mex- 
ico in 1630 is Alonso de Benavides, Memorial, trans- 
lated by Mrs. Edward E. Ayer and annotated by Fred- 
erick Webb Hodge and Charles F. Lummis (1916). 
Documents are contained in Ralph Emerson Twitchell, 
The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 2 vols. (1914), 
and Herbert E. Bolton, Spanish Exploration in the 
Southwest, 15^2-1706 (1916), where extensive recently 
discovered material is presented. 

PiMERiA Alta and Baja CALIFORNIA. The work of 
the Jesuits in Pimeria Alta and Baja California is 
treated in Hubert Howe Bancroft's North Mexican 
States, 2 vols. (1883-89), his Arizona and New Mexico 
(1888), Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, The Missions and 
Missionaries of California, vol. i (1908), and Theo- 
dore H. Hittell, History of California, vol. i (1885). 
An interesting popular book, of slight historical merit, 
however, is Arthur North, The Mother of California 
(1908). Excellent eighteenth century accounts are 
Jose Ortega, Apostolicos Afanes de la Compania de 
Jesus (1754); Miguel Venegas, Noticia de la Cali- 
fornia, 3 vols. (1757); and Francisco Xavier Alegre, 
Historia de la Compania de Jesus, 3 vols. (1841). 
The foundational source for Kino's work is his own 
Historical Memoir of Pimeria Alta (1919) edited by 
Herbert E. Bolton. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 301 

Texas. The only general sketch of Spanish Texas is 
contained in Garrison's Texas, A Contest of Civiliza- 
tions (1903). More detailed, for the ground covered, 
are R. C. Clark, The Beginnings of Texas (1907), Wil- 
liam Edward Dunn, Spanish and French Rivalry in the 
Gulf Region of the United States, 1678-1702 (1917); 
and Herbert E. Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eigh- 
teenth Century (1915). Of the four named only the last 
two are based on adequate materials. Documents 
and monographs by Austin, Bolton, Buckley, Clark, 
Cox, Dunn, Marshall, McCaleb, and others are in the 
Texas State Historical Association Quarterly and the 
Southwestern Historical Quarterly. The story of the 
French border is told by Francis Parkman in his La 
Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1910), and his 
Half Century of Conflict (1892), and Pierre Heinrich, 
La Louisiane sous la Campaignie des Indes (1905). 
Contemporary narratives are Alonso de Leon, His- 
toria de Nuevo Leon (edited by Genaro Garcia, in Docu- 
mentos Ineditos, xxv, 1909), and Fr. Isidro Felix de 
Espiiiosa, Chronica Apostolica y Serdphica de Todos los 
Colegios de Propagande Fide (1746). Espinosa was 
long a missionary on the Rio Grande and in Eastern 
Texas. Documents are contained in Bolton's Spanish 
Exploration in the Southwest, and in Esteban L. Por- 
tillo, Apuntes para la Historia Antigua de Coahuila y 
Texas (1886). 

Alta California. Histories of Alta California are 
numerous. The best general repositories of facts are 
the works of Bancroft, Hittell, and Engelhardt. Ele- 
mentary sketches are Rockwell D. Hunt, California 
the Golden (1911) and H. K. Norton, The Story of 



302 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

California (1913). The results of recent scholarship 
are presented in Irving B. Richman, California under 
Spain and Mexico (1911), for which the archive mate- 
rials were gathered mainly by Bolton; Charles Edward 
Chapman, The Founding of Spanish California (1916); 
and Herbert Ingram Priestley, JosS de Gdlvez (1916), 
Zoeth Eldredge, The Beginnings of San Francisco 
(1912), gives an excellent account of the Anza expedi- 
tions. Francisco Palou's Noticias de la Nueva California 
(1874), and his Junipero Serra (1787, English transla- 
tion, edited by G. W. James, 1913), are excellent con- 
temporary accounts. Documents are in Elliott Coues, 
On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer, 2 vols, (1900), and 
in various volumes of the Academy of Pacific Coast 
History Publications. 

Louisiana. The sketches of Louisiana under Spain 
have been thus far mainly written with attention fixed 
on New Orleans. Useful accounts are in Albert Phelps, 
Louisiana (1905), Charles Gayarre, History of Louisi- 
ana (1903), vol. Ill, Reuben Gold Thwaites, France in 
America (1905), pp. 281-295; F. A. Ogg, The Opening 
of the Mississippi (1904), pp. 294-459; Barbe-Marbois, 
History of Louisiana (English translation, 1830) ; W. R. 
Shepherd, The Cession of Louisiana to Spain (Political 
Science Quarterly, xix), 439-458; Herbert E. Bolton, 
Athanase de Mezieres and the Louisiana Texas Frontier, 
1768-1780, 2 vols. (1914), vol. i. Introduction. Peter 
J. Hamilton, The Colonization of the South (vol. iii of 
G. C. Lee's History of North America, 1904); Colonial 
Mobile (1910). by the same author; Louis Houck, His- 
tory of Missouri, 3 vols. (1908); Thomas M. Marshall, 
History of the Western Boundary of the Louisiana 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 303 

Purchase, 1803-18Jt.l (1914), Documentary collections 
are Louis Houck, The Spanish Regime in Missouri, 2 
vols. (1909); James Alexander Robertson, Louisiana 
under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States, 
2 vols. (1911); and Bolton's Athanase de Mezihres, 
just cited. 

The Anglo-Spanish Border. The materials for the 
Anglo-Spanish border are still scattered and are to be 
found chiefly in the separate histories of the West In- 
dies, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and of the 
intercolonial wars. Especially useful are the works of 
Shea and Barcia, already cited, and Sir William 
Laird Clowes (and others) The Royal Navy, 7 vols. 
(1897-1903). 



mDEX 



Abrado, Marchioness, bride of 

, Ulloa, 240 

Acoma, Alvarado reaches, 94; 

Castafieda's description of, 

94; Espejo goes to, 168; 

Ofiate captures, 174 
Aguayo, Marquis de, Texas 

expedition, 227 
Alabama, De Soto in, 51, 59- 

60 
Alamo (San Antonio), mission 

started, 226 
Alaniz, companion of Vaca, 30; 

death, 31 
Alarcon cooperates with Coro- 

nado, 89, 107 
Albuquerque, 183; textiles 

manufactured at, 185 
Alva, Duke of, on Spanish 

subjection of Louisiana, 

242-43 
Alvarado, Hernando de, mem- 
ber of Coronado's expedi- 
tion, 94-95, 96 
Alvarado, Pedro de, conqueror 

of Guatemala, death (1541), 

107 
Amazons, legend of California, 

105, 106 
Amichel, Spanish name for 

Texas coast, 10 
Anian, Strait of, quest of 

fabled, 108, 117, 174, 208; 

Drake and, 113, 114, 169; 

leads to discovery of Bering 

Strait, 118, 258 
Anza, Juan Bautista, Califor- 
nia expedition, 269-72; first 



to cross Sierras, 271; leads 
colony to San Francisco, 
272-76 

Apache Indians, Estevanico 
crosses present reservation 
of, 83; and Coronado, 99; 
part in Pueblo Revolt (1680). 
179; Spanish policy regard- 
ing, 190; Kino and, 200; 
depredations in Sonora, 201; 
block trade with New Mex- 
ico, 230; Mezieres's cam- 
paign of extermination, 252; 
steal horses of Anza's colo- 
nists, 275 

Appalachee Bay, Narvaez 
reaches, 23 

Appalachen, Indian town in 
northern Florida, 21, 22 

Aquixo (Arkansas) cacique 
visits De Soto, 65-66 

Aranda, Count of, on Spanish 
acquisition of Louisiana, 242 

Arbadaos Indians, Vaca 
among, 39-40 

Arellano, Tristan de Luna y, 
with Coronado's expedition, 
89, 92, 100, 102; Florida 
expedition, 131-32; replaced 
as leader by Villafane, 132 

Arikara Indians, fur traders 
among, 255 

Arizona, settlement, 188; mis- 
sions in, 191; Kino's mission- 
ary enterprise, 192, 193-96, 
198-201; Jesuit missionary 
revival (1732), 201; silver 
discovered, 201-02; origin 



305 



300 



INDEX 



Arizona — Continued 

of name, 201; added to 

United States, 257 
Arkansas, De Soto traverses, 

51, 65; Moscoso crosses, 

75 
Ascension, Father, accompan- 
ies Vizcaino's expedition, 

115, 267 
Asinai (Texas) Indians, Massa- 

net goes to, 216; welcome 

Spaniards, 225 
Aubry, commands French 

army at New Orleans, 238, 

239, 244; and Ulloa, 241; 

and O'Reilly, 245, 246; sails 

for France, 249; drowned, 

249 
Austin, Moses, Spanish grants 

to, 256, 257 
Avavares Indians, Vaca among 

the, 38-39 
Aviles, Pedro Menendez de, see 

Menendez 
Axacan, mission founded at, 

159 
Ayll6n, Lucas Vasquez de, 

expedition into Florida, 12- 

13; obtains patent to Chi- 

cora, 15; settlement, 16-18; 

death (1526), 18 
Aztecs, conquest by Cortes, 12; 

worth trouble of conquering, 

190 

Bacallaos River (St. Lawrence), 
150; see also St. Lawrence 
River 

Baez, Brother, Jesuit, compiles 
first grammar in United 
States. 159 

Bahama Channel, Ponce de 
Leon discovers, 9 

Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, De 
Soto brother-in law to, 46 

Barrientos, historian of Me- 
nendez, quoted, 149 

Beaujeu, naval commander 
with La Salle. 209-10 



Belen, mission settlement at, 
185 

Beltrdn, Father, Franciscan, 
accompanies Espejo, 168 

Benavides, Father, account of 
Queres mission, 178 

Bent, Charles, American pio- 
neer, 187 

Bercerillo, dog belonging to 
Ponce de Leon, 5 

Bering, Vitus, expedition, 258 

Beteta, Gregorio de, Domini- 
can monk, accompanies 
Fray Luis Cancer, 123, 125, 
126, 127; with Villafane, 133 

Bienville, J. B. le Moyne, 
Sieur de, brother of Iber- 
ville, Governor of Louisiana, 
220; founds New Orleans, 
220; captures Pensacola, 
226; protests transfer of 
Louisiana to Spain, 237 

Biloxi, French fort built at, 219 

Bimini, Island of. Ponce de 
Le6n seeks, 6 

Biscayne Bay, Spanish fort on, 
154 

Boisblanc, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 248 

Bolton, H. E., ed.. Kino's 
Historical Memoir, quoted, 
198-99, 203-04 

Boneo, Governor, and St. 
Denis, 229, 230 

Boone, Daniel, 256 

Borme, fur trader, 251 

Boscana, Padre, preserves In- 
dian song, 289 

Boyano, Sergeant, with Me- 
nendez, 153, 158 

Braud, arrested after Louisi- 
ana revolt, 246; released, 
247 

British East India Company, 
115 

Bua, Governor of San Juan 
pueblo. Pope slays, 179 

Bucarely, Viceroy, Anza and, 
272 



INDEX 



307 



Burr, Aaron, plans filibustering 
raid, 257 

Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Nunez, 
see Vaca 

Cabrillo, Juan Rodriguez, com- 
mands sea expedition of 
Mendoza, 108-11; death 
(1543), 111 

Cadillac, Governor of Louisi- 
ana, 220 

Cale, De Soto at, 52, 53 

California, Montalvo's legend 
of island of, 105; Cortes 
names, 107; Cabrillo's ex- 
pedition to, 108-12; Urda- 
neta reaches, 112-13; Drake 
on coast of, 113; Cermeno 
seeks port on coast of, 114; 
Vizcaino's expedition, 114- 
119; Viceroy urges efforts be 
concentrated on, 177; Fran- 
ciscans in, 206; missions, 
206, 279-87; added to 
United States, 257; settle- 
ment, 258 et seq.\ Portola's 
expedition, 259-68; Anza's 
expedition, 269-72; colony 
led by Anza to San Francisco, 
272-76; other settlements, 
277; Serra's work in. 277- 
279, 281; Government policy 
regarding missions, 282-84; 
secularization of missions, 
283-84; colonization, 289; 
primitive life in, 290-95; 
bibliography, 301-02 

California, Gulf of, Onate 
explores, 176 

California, Lower, discovered, 
106; Vizcaino commissioned 
to colonize, 114; Jesuits in, 
188, 191, 196, 197, 202-05, 
206; Kino's missionary en- 
terprise, 192, 196; Salvatierra 
in, 196, 197, 202-05; Kino's 
theory of geography of, 197; 
Dominicans in, 206; bibliog- 
raphy, 300 



Caliquen, De Soto at, 53, 54- 
55 

Canada settled by French, 
129 

Canaveral, Cape, Ponce de 
Leon at, 8 

Cancer, Luis, Dominican friar, 
Florida expedition, 121-28, 
189 

Canoes, Town of, Cabrillo at, 
110 

Cape Fear River, Ayllon calls 
Jordan, 17 

Cardenas, Lopez de, views 
Grand Canyon, 92, 93 

Caresse, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 248 

Carlos, cacique in Florida, 8, 
11 

Carlos III of Spain, accession, 
232; reforms, 233, 234 

Carolina, De Soto in, 51; see 
also North Carolina, South 
Carolina 

Caroline, Fort, French settle- 
ment, 136, 137; menace to 
New Spain, 138; Ribaut at, 
140, 144; Menendez mas- 
sacres French at, 145; re- 
christened Fort San Mateo, 
146; French reprisal at, 
157-58 

Carson, Kit, 187 

Cartagena, sacked by English, 
162 

Cartier, Jacques, discovers St. 
Lawrence River, 128, 150 

Castaneda, historian of Coro- 
nado's expedition, 90, 165; 
describes Grand Canyon, 
92-93; on Acoma, 94; de- 
scription of Texas country, 
99-100 
Castillo, Vaca and, 28, 36, 38, 

39 
Catherine de' Medici, Philip II 
marries daughter of, 135; 
Philip and, 139; and mas- 
sacre of Ribaut's colony, 155 



308 



INDEX 



Catholics, with Laudonniere's 
colony, 136; in France, 139; 
see also names of orders 

Cavelier, Abbe Jean, brother of 
La Salle, 211 

Cavendish, burns the Santa 
Ana, 113 

Cells, Rubin de, hacienda of, 
185 

Cermeno, commander of 
Philippine galleon, 114 

Chamuscado, Francisco, leads 
soldiers in New Mexico ex- 
pedition, 166; death, 168 

Charles II of Spain, death, 
219 

Charles V and Ponce de Leon, 
6, 10; Ayllon obtains patent 
from, 15; De Soto and, 47; 
bans fiction from Indies, 
105; master of Europe, 128 

Charleston founded (1670), 
163, 208 

Charlotte Bay, Spanish fort 
on, 154 

Charlotte Harbor, Ponce de 
Leon lands near, 11 

Cherokee Indians, De Soto 
among, 59 

Chesapeake Bay, Menendez 
projects settlement on, 154; 
Father Segura founds mis- 
sion, 159; see also Santa 
Maria, Bay of 

Chickasaw Indians, De Soto 
among, 63-64 

Chicora, 18; Gordillo lands in, 
13; mythical tales of, 14- 
15; Ayllon obtains patent to, 
15; colony taken to, 16-17 

Chicorana, Francisco, Indian 
taken captive by Gordilla, 
13; tells myths of Chicora, 
14-15; deserts Ayllon, 17 

Chouteaus, fur traders, 252 

Chozas, Pedro,. Franciscan, 
160 

Cibola, Estevanico learns of 
the Seven Cities, 82; Fray 



Marcos seeks, 82-83; origin 
of name, 82 (note); Estevan- 
ico seized at, 83, 85; Fray 
Marcos tells of, 87-88; Cor- 
onado seeks, 89, 90; Ribaut 
learns of, 136; further search 
for, 166; see also Seven Cities 

Glamorgan, fur trader, 252, 254 

Clark, G. R., 253 

Coahuila, French menace, 213; 
Leon Governor of, 214; 
French plan to conquer, 226 

Coligny, Admiral of France, 
sends out colony under Lau- 
donniere, 135-36; and mas- 
sacre of colony, 155; and 
Gourgues' expedition, 156 

Colorado added to United 
States, 257 

Colorado River, Kino explores, 
197 

Columbia River, myth of 
River of the West leads to 
discovery of, 118 

Columbus, Diego, Governor of 
Espanola, 5; sets Indians 
free, 13 

Comanche Indians, block trade 
with New Mexico, 230; Vial 
in country of, 254 

"Company of Explorers of the 
Missouri," 255 

Cook, Captain James, 277 

Coosa, De Soto at, 59-60; 
Arellano wishes to go to, 
132; Mendndez at, 150- 
151 

Coronado, Francisco Vasques 
de, heads expedition, 80; 
at Culiacan, 81; expedition, 
88-103, 106, 108, 165; treach- 
ery towards Indians, 97 

Cortes, Francisco, nephew of 
Hernando, 106 

Cortes, Hernando, conquest of 
Aztecs, 3, 12; Ponce emu- 
lates, 10-11; and Narvaez, 
19; and Amazon legend, 
106, 107 



INDEX 



309 



Costanso, companion of Por- 

tola, 263 
Creek Indians, Spanish policy 

regarding, 190; English fur 

traders among, 218 
Crespi, Father Juan, historian 

of Rivera's expedition, 261, 

262; quoted, 264-65 
Crozat, Antoine, has monopoly 

of Louisiana commerce, 222 
Cuba, Spanish expedition 

from, 3-4; Ponce de Leon at, 

11; De Soto made Governor 

of, 47 
Cubero succeeds Vargas in 

New Mexico, 181 
Cucurpe, mission station, 193 
Cufitachiqui, De Soto at, 57; 

De Soto enslaves cacica of, 

58. 59 
Culiacdn, founding, 80; Coro- 

nado at, 81 

Dana, R. H., cited, 279 

De Soto, Hernando, see Soto 

Del Rey, Felix, prosecuting 
attorney in Louisiana trial, 
247 

Descalona, Lufs, lay brother in 
New Mexico, 103-04 

Diaz, Father, with Anza, 270 

Diaz, Melchior, scout with 
Coronado, 92 

Diego, Fray, see Tolosa, Diego 
de 

Dolores, Mission, 199; see also 
Neustra Senora de los 
Dolores 

Domingo, Brother, Jesuit, 
translates catechism into 
Guale, 159 

Dominicans, accompany Ayl- 
I6n's expedition, 16; accom- 
pany De Soto, 52; in Vera 
Paz, 123; in Lower Califor- 
nia, 206 

Dorantes, Vaca and, 28, 36; 
selected as leader of expedi- 
tion, 80 



Doucet, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 248 

Drake, Sir Francis, menace to 
Spain, 113-14; takes posses- 
sion of New Albion, 162; 
defeats Spanish Armada, 1 13, 
163; and Strait of Anian, 
113,114,169 

Drake's Bay, Cabrillo dis- 
covers, 110-11; Cermeiio 
wrecked in, 114; Vizcaino 
in, 116 

Dutch, trading stations in 
West Indies, 212 

Eixarch, friar with California 
colony, 273; remains with 
Yuma Indians, 273, 274 

El Morro ClifiF, names carved 
on, 167 

El Paso, Vaca at, 42; Spanish 
settlement, now Juarez, 179; 
largest city of New Mexico 
(1744), 183; acequia at, 
185 

El Turco, Indian with Coro- 
nado, 95-96, 98, 100, 101; 
killed, 102 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, 
161-62 

England, rivalry with Spain, 
129, 161-64, 218; coloniza- 
tion, 163, 207; threatens 
Oregon coast, 255; sends 
Cook to North Pacific, 277 

Escobar, Father, joins Oiiate, 
175 

Espafiola (Hayti), Spanish ex- 
pedition from, 3-4; Ayllon 
sails from, 16 

Espejo, Antonio de, leads res- 
cue party, 168-69; Onate 
follows, 176 

Espinosa, Father, with Texas 
colony, 225 

Espiritu Santo, Spanish name 
for Mississippi River, 10 

Estevanico, 45; with Narvaez's 
expedition, 36, 37; and Vaca, 



310 



INDEX 



Este vanico — Contin ued 

36; serves Mendoza, 80; 
accompanies Coronado's ex- 
pedition, 81, 83; taken pris- 
oner, 83, 85; and Indians, 
84-85; death, 85-86 

Evans, explorer with Glamor- 
gan's Company, 255 

Pages, with Portola's Cali- 
fornia expedition, 263 

Farfan, Captain, 176; comedy 
produced by Onate's men, 
173 

Ferrelo, Bartolome, pilot with 
Cabrillo, 109, 111 

Ferrer, Bartolome, see Ferrelo 

Florida, 18; Spanish explorers 
in, 3; Ponce de Leon's first 
expedition, 7-9; explored 
and charted, 9; Ponce de 
Leon's second expedition, 
11-12; Narviez attempts to 
settle, 19-25, 47; De Soto's 
expedition, 47-56; coloni- 
zation, 120 et seq.; missions 
in, 160, 191; ceded to United 
States, 164; England receives, 
232; returned to Spain, 253; 
bibliography, 298-99 

Florida Keys, Ponce names 
"The Martyrs," 8 

Font, with Anza's colony, 
273 

Foucault, arrested by Spanish 
in Louisiana, 246-47 

Fountain of Youth, Ponce de 
Leon seeks, 6, 8; Laudonni- 
ere and, 136 

France, threatens Spain's 
American possessions, 128- 
129, 207, 213; pirates from, 
129; gaining a foothold in 
America, 134-35; Philip's 
attitude toward, 134-35; 
settlement at Fort Caroline, 
136-40; Men6ndez and 
French colony, 142-50, 155; 
Gourgues' expedition, 155- 



158; supremacy in Europe, 
208; La Salle's expedition, 
209-12; colonization plan, 
218; war with Spain, 226; 
cedes Louisiana to Spain, 
232 

Franciscans, in Florida, 160; 
with Onate, 171; missions 
in New Mexico, 183; in Alta 
California, 206; in Lower 
California, 259; see also 
California, missions 

French in America, See 
France 

French West Indian Company, 
212 

Fuentes, oblate with Fray 
Luis Cancer, 125 

Fur trade. King of Spain denies 
rights, 121; French and, 208, 
209, 251; English and, 218; 
notable traders, 251-52; 
Russian, 258 

Gadsden Purchase, 257 

Galeras, Juan, with Coronado, 
93 

Galvez, Bernardo de. Governor 
of Louisiana, 249-50; cap- 
tures English posts, 253 

Galvez, Jose de, organizes 
California expedition, 259 

Garces, Father, Franciscan, 
Anza's guide, 270; accom- 
panies California colonists, 
273; remains at Yuma, 273, 
274 

Garcia, Juan, Dominican monk 
with Fray Luis Cancer, 
123 

Gayarre, Charles, quoted, 236- 
237, 241 

Georgia, De Soto in, 51, 56- 
58, 59; Jesuit missionaries 
in, 159; missions in, 160, 191 

Gomez, Esteban, Spanish navi- 
gator, 16 

Gonzalvo, Father, sent to San 
Xavier, 199 



INDEX 



311 



Gordillo, Francisco, Spanish 

explorer, 13 
Gourgues, Dominique de, 

Florida expedition, 155-58 
Grand Canyon, Castaneda's 

description of, 92-93 
Grashofer, Jesuit missionary, 

201 
Gregorio, Fray, see Beteta 
Guale (Georgia), Spanish fort 

at, 154; missionaries at, 159 
Guatemala, Fray Luis Cancer 

in, 122 
Guzman, Nuno de, official of 

New Spain, and Vaca, 44; 

expedition of conquest, 80, 

106; treatment of Indians, 

189, 190 

Havana, French menace in, 
213; captured by English, 
232; prosperity under Eng- 
lish, 232-33 

Hawikuh, of the Seven Cities, 
Estevanico at, 85; Fray 
Marcos discovers, 86-87; 
Coronado at, 90, 91; re- 
named Granada, 91 

Hawkins, John, English pi- 
rate, 137-38 

Hearts, Town of the, Vaca 
names, 43; Coronado at, 
89 

Henry, Patrick, purchases 
Spanish stock, 250 

Herrera, quoted, 5, 6, 10-11; 
cited, 107 

Heyn, Piet, buccaneer, 213 

Hidalgo, Father, Franciscan, 
and Texas, 221, 228; letters 
to French, 221-23; St. Denis 
and, 223-24; accompanies 
expedition to Texas, 225 

Hopi Indians, Espejo visits, 
168 

Horn, Cape, Dutch mariners 
round, 113 

Horses, Bay of, Narvaez's expe- 
dition in, 24, 34 



Huguenots, in France, 128, 
139; pirates, 129; Ribaut's 
colony at Port Royal, 135; 
in Laudonniere's colony, 
136 

Ibarra, Francisco de, and 
Kingdom of New Biscay, 
151 

Iberville, Pierre le Moyne d', 
founds Louisiana colony, 
218; at San Carlos, 219; 
builds fort at Biloxi, 219 

Indians, and Ponce de Leon, 
8, 11; sold as slaves, 12; 
freed by Diego Columbus, 
13; and Narvaez, 20-21; 
Vaca and, 26-27, 28-33, 35, 
36, 37, 38-44; De Soto and, 
49, 50, 53-55, 57-58, 60-61, 
64, 65-66, 71, 73; as story- 
tellers, 79-80; and Este- 
vanico, 84-85; Coronado's 
treachery, 96-97; in Taos, 
102; Cabrillo and, 109; Fray 
Luis Cancer and, 125, 126, 
127; Villafane and, 134; 
Laudonniere and, 136-37; 
massacre at Tampa Bay, 158; 
Onate and. 173-74, 174-75; 
government and life in New 
Mexico, 181-87; trade with, 
185-86; place in Spanish 
scheme of conquest, 189-91; 
French traders' influence on, 
227; efforts to win to Span- 
ish allegiance, 252; see also 
Missions, names of tribes 

Inscription Rock, 167 

Isabel, Dona, daughter of 
Pedrarias, wife of De Soto, 
46, 48, 49, 69; death, 78 

Jamaica, Spanish expedition 

from, 4 
Jamestown settled (1607), 163 
Janissaries, 184 
Jarri, French adventurer, 214 
Jesuits, Menendez sends out. 



312 



INDEX 



Jesuits — Continued 

159; abandon Florida, 160; 
persecution in England, 163; 
on Pacific slope, 188 et seq. 

Jimenez discovers Lower Cali- 
fornia, 106 

Joliet, Louis, descends Mis- 
sissippi, 208 

Juan, Fray, see Garcia 

Juarez, Spanish settlement, 179 

Kansas, Coronado in, 101; 

soldiers left in, 103 
Keler, Jesuit missionary, 201 
Kino, Eusebio Francisco, Jes- 
uit missionary, 192 et seq., 
206; explores Arizona, 195- 
196; as trailmaker, 199-200; 
death (1711), 200 

La Bahia (Matagorda Bay), 
228; see also Matagorda Bay 

La Clede establishes trading 
post at St. Louis, 237 

La Cruz, Juan de, Franciscan 
missionary in New Mexico, 
103-04 

Lafreni^re, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 248 

La Mathe, fur trader, 251 

La Paz, Vizcaino plants colony 
at (1597), 114 

La Perouse, cited, 279 

La Salle, Robert Cavelier de, 
attempt at colonization, 
209-12; Leon searches for 
colony of, 214; colony as 
found by Leon, 215 

Laudonniere, Rene de. Fort 
Caroline colony under, 136- 
140; rescued from Menendez, 
145 

La Verendrye, Canadian 
trader, 230 

Las Casas, head of monastery 
of Santiago, 122 

Las Matanzas (Tlie Massacre), 
scene of Menendez's brutal- 
ity, 147 



Law, John, leads colonists to 
Louisiana, 225 

Le Blanc, fur trader, 251 

Lecuyer, explorer with Gla- 
morgan's Company, 255 

Legazpi, Miguel Lopez de, 
takes possession of Philip- 
pine Islands (1565), 112, 
150, 151 

Le6n, Alonso de, expeditions 
against French, 214-16, 
228 

Lewis and Clark expedition, 
255 

Linck, Father, Jesuit explorer, 
261 

Lisa, fur trader, 25 2_ 

Lopez, Fray Francisco, with 
missionary expedition in 
New Mexico, 166 

Los Adaes (Robeline), mission 
built, 225; settlement in 
Texas, 228; presidio added, 
228; settlers expelled (1773), 
250 

Los Angeles founded, 277 

Louis XIV of France com- 
missions Iberville to colon- 
ize, 218 

Louisiana, 232 et seq.; De Soto 
traverses, 51; trade with 
New Mexico, 186; part of 
Texas, 207; plans for found- 
ing French colony, 218; 
Spain acquires, 234-35; 
settlements (1762), 235; 
trade with English, 249-50; 
Indian policy in, 251; popu- 
lation (1800), 256; pur- 
chased by United States, 
256; bibliography, 302-03 

Lowerv, Woodbury, Florida, 
quoted, 143, 149, 157-58; 
Spanish Settlements, quoted, 
5, 10, 12, 16, 125, 190; 
cited, 127 

Luis, Fray, see Cancer 

Luna y Arellano, Tristan de, 
see Arellano 



INDEX 



313 



Luther, Martin, defies Charles 
V, 128 

Macanoche, sister of chief of 
Pacaha, 67 

McGillivray, Alexander, In- 
dian agent, 255 

Mackay, explorer with Gla- 
morgan's Company, 255 

MacNutt, F. A., ed., De Orbe 
Novo, quoted, 14-15 

Magdalena, interpreter for 
Fray Luis Cancer, 124 

Maldonado, lieutenant of De 
Soto, 62, 78 

"Malhado" Island (Galveston 
Island), Vaca castaway on, 
25, 26 

Mallet brothers, Canadian 
traders, 230 

Mandan Indians, trading posts 
among, 255 

Mange, Lieutenant Juan, with 
Kino's expeditions, 195 

Manila, trade route to Spain 
from, 113; captured by Eng- 
lish, 232; see also Philippine 
Islands 

Marcos, Fray, see Nizo 

Mares, Jose, finds direct trail 
from San Antonio to Santa 
Fe, 254 

Margil, Father, heads mission- 
ary expedition to Texas, 
225 

Marquette, Jacques, Jesuit, 
descends Mississippi, 208 

Marquis, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 248 

Martinez, Father, Franciscan 
leader with Ofiate, 171 

Martinez, Father, Jesuit, 
Florida mission, 153 

Martyr, Peter, tales of Caro- 
lina, 14 

"Martyrs, The," Ponce de 
Leon's name for Florida 
Keys, 8 

Massanet, Damian, Franciscan 



friar with Le6n's expedition, 
214-17, 228 

Matagorda Bay, La Salle lands 
on, 209; French expeditions 
to, 227 

Mavilla (Mobile), De Soto at, 
60; see also Mobile 

Melgosa, Captain, with Coro- 
nado's expedition, 93 

Memorial of the Planters, 246, 
248 

Menchero, Father, description 
of New Mexico (1744), 182 

Mendocino, Cape, Vizcaino 
reaches, 116 

Mendoza, Antonio de, first 
Viceroy of New Spain, 80; 
and Coronado, 80, 88, 103, 
107; Florida project, 120-21; 
quoted, 190 

Menendez de Avil^s, Pedro, 
advises Philip II, 135; 
French learn of expedition, 
138; expedition against 
French in Florida, 140-49; 
further explorations and 
settlements, 150-55; honors 
conferred by King, 154; 
leaves America (1572), 160; 
death (1574), 161 

Meras, with Menendez 's ex- 
pedition, 148 

Mexican War, 257 

Mexico, City of. Fray Luis 
Cancer goes to, 123 

Mexico, missions in, 191; trade 
with French, 222-23 

Mezieres, Athanase de, Indian 
agent, 252, 254 

Milhet, Jean, leader in Louisi- 
ana revolt, 248 

Milhet, Joseph, leader in 
Louisiana revolt, 248 

Missions, work of Franciscans 
in Florida, Georgia, and 
South Carolina, 160; de- 
scription of Queres mission, 
178; in New Mexico, 183; 
for Janissaries, 184-85; in 



314 



INDEX 



Missions — Continued 
Spanish scheme of conquest, 
188-91; in Lower California, 
203-06; Kino's work in 
Arizona, 192-202; for Texas, 
215-17; Hidalgo's efforts for, 
221-25; in California, 279- 
287; secularization of, 282- 
285; architecture, 286 

Mississippi, De Soto in, 51, 
63-64 

Mississippi River, Peneda 
names Espiritu Santo, 10; 
De Soto reaches, 65; De 
Soto's burial, 73-74; Joliet 
and Marquette on. 208; 
navigation closed, 255-56 

Mixton War, 107 

Mobile, De Soto at, 60; Galvez 
conquers, 253 

Mobile Bay, French settlement 
moved to, 219 

Mochila, sister of chief of Pa- 
caha, 67 

Mojave Indians, trade, 186 

Montalvo, Esplandidn, 107; 
quoted, 105 

Monterey, Count of. Viceroy, 
114 

Monterey Bay, Vizcaino dis- 
covers, 115 

Montezuma, Isabel Tolosa 
Cortes, wife of Onate, 170 

Moqui Indians, garments, 83; 
trade, 186 

Moranget, nephew and com- 
panion of La Salle, 211 

Morgan, Colonel George, 
founds New Madrid (1790), 
256 

Moscoso, Luis de, chosen suc- 
cessor to De Soto, 72; as 
leader, 74-78, 108; reaches 
City of Mexico, 120 

Nacogdoches, settlement in 

Texas, 228 
Napoleon and Louisiana, 256 
Narvaez, Panfilo de, fame as 



soldier, 19; leads colonists 
to Florida, 19-25; death, 25 

Neustra Senora de los Dolores 
mission, 193-94 

Nevada added to United 
States, 257 

New Albion, Drake takes 
possession of, 162 

New Biscay, Ibarra in, 151, 
152 

New Galicia, Vaca in, 43, 44; 
Coronado in, 81 

New Leon, French menace in, 
213 

New Madrid founded, 256 

New Mexico, Spanish explorers 
in, 3, 165 et seq.; origin of 
name, 165; a burden to Spain 
176, 177; as missionary 
field, 177-78; Indians con- 
quer, 179-80; Spanish re- 
conquer, 180-81; becomes 
province of Mexico (1821), 
181, 187; government, 181; 
trade with, 185-86, 187; 
population, 187; missions in, 
191; French plan conquest 
of, 226; colonizing expedi- 
tion from, 227; French trad- 
ers in, 231; added to United 
States, 257; bibliography, 
299-300 

New Orleans, founded, 220; 
ceded to Spain, 235; as- 
sembly sends memorial to 
France, 237 

New Spain, communication 
with Louisiana opened, 253 

Niza, Marcos de, Franciscan 
with Coronado's expedition, 
80-83, 86-87, 89, 90, 91 

Nolan, Philip, in Texas, 256 

North Carolina, Pardo's ex- 
pedition, 153; see also 
Carolina 

North Dakota, Spanish flag 
carried to, 255 

Noyan, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 248 



INDEX 



315 



Oklahoma, De Soto in, 51, 68 
Olivares, Father, begins San 

Antonio mission, 226 
Omaha Indians, trading posts 

among, 255 
Onate, Juan de, expedition to 

New Mexico, 170-77 
Ordinance of 1573, 166 
Oregon, Russian menace in, 

258 
O'Reilly, Alejandro, sent by 

Spain to Louisiana, 243; life, 

243-44; action in Louisiana, 

244-49; "Bloody O'Reilly," 

249 
Orista mission founded, 159 
Ortiz, Juan, with Narvaez, 

50; found by De Soto, 50-51; 

interpreter for De Soto, 64; 

death. 69 
Our Lady of Sorrows, mission 

founded by Kino, 194-95 
Oviedo, historian, 14; quoted, 

18 
Oviedo, Lope de, castaway 

with Vaca, 26, 30, 31, 34- 

35 

Pacaha, De Soto seeks for, 63; 

De Soto at, 67 
Paden, W. G., reconnaissance 

of Anza's route, 271 

(note) 
Padilla, Fray Juan de, with 

Coronado's expedition, 94; 

remains in New Mexico, 

103-04 
Palma, Yuma chief, 269, 274 
Palou, Father, and Serra, 281 
Pardo, Juan, with Menendez's 

expedition, 152-53, 158 
Pareja, Father, Franciscan, 

work on Indian languages, 

160 
Paver, Jesuit missionary, 201 
Pecos Indians and Alvarado, 

95 
Pedrarias, De Soto marries 

daughter of, 46 



Peneda, Gulf explorer, 10 

Pensacola, Villafane at, 133; 
conflict over, 226; restored 
to Spain, 227; Galvez cap- 
tures, 253 

Peralta, Pedro de, succeeds 
Onate, 177 

Petit, leader in Louisiana re- 
volt, 248 

Philip II of Spain, equips 
expedition to Far East, 112; 
personal characteristics, 128; 
and colonization of Florida, 
134; declaration, 135; mar- 
riage, 135; and Menendez, 
154, 155; intrigue in France, 
161; and Queen Elizabeth, 
162-63; and conquest of 
New Mexico. 169 

Philip V of Spain, and French, 
219 

Philippine Islands, Villalobos 
takes possession of, 108, 112; 
Legazpi takes possession of, 
112, 150, 151; restored to 
Spain, 232; see also Manila 

Picolo, Father, Jesuit with 
Salvatierra in Lower Cali- 
fornia, 196, 203; quoted, 
203-04 

Pike, Zebulon, captured by 
Spaniards, 186 

Pima Indians, Kino among, 
195, 196; uprising (1751), 
202 

Pimeria Alta, location, 193; 
Kino in, 193; bibliography, 
300 

Pious Fund of California. 202. 
205 

Pirates, 129 

Piseros, fur trader, 251 

Pizarro, De Soto with, 46 

Point Conception, Cabrillo 
reaches, 110 

Ponce de Leon, Juan, in Porto 
Rico, 5, 7; explorations in 
Florida, 5-12; goes to Spain, 
9; letter to Charles V, 10; 



316 



INDEX 



Ponce de Leon — Continued 
death, 12-13; discovers Ba- 
hama Channel, 130 

Pope, Tewa medicine man, in- 
cites Pueblo Revolt (1680), 
179 

Port Royal (S. C.) (Santa 
Elena), Spanish colony, 130; 
Ribaut's French colony, 135, 
138; see also Santa Elena 

Porto Rico, Spanish expedition 
from, 3-4; Ponce de Leon in, 
5, 7; grave of Ponce de Leon 
in, 11-12 

Portola, Caspar de, Governor 
of Lower California, 259; ex- 
pedition to Alta California, 
259-67 

Portugal, union with Spain, 
115 

Poupet, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 248 _ 

Puaray, missionaries slain at, 
168 

Pueblo Indians, present day 
artists and, 102 (note); un- 
disturbed after Coronado, 
165; missionary efforts 
among, 177-79; Revolt 
(1680), 179; traders and, 
230 

Puerto de Luna (New Mexico), 
Coronado at, 98 

Quebec, fall of, 232 
Queres missions, 178 
Quevene Indians, Vaca meets, 

35-36 
Quexos, slave hunter with 

Gordillo, 13; pilot for Ayl- 

16n, 15 
Quivira, Coronado seeks, 95, 

98, 100; Coronado reaches, 

101; Onateat, 174 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, attempt at 

colonization, l62 
Ram6n, Captain Domingo, 

and St. Denis, 224; com- 



mands Texas expedition, 224, 
228 
Reformation, the, 128 
Revolutionary War, 253 
Ribaut, Jacques, son of Jean, 

138; rescues French, 145 
Ribaut, Jean, leads Huguenot 
colony to Port Royal, 135; 
replaces Laudonniere at Fort 
Caroline, 138, 140; and 
Menendez, 142-43. 144, 155; 
killed, 148 
Rio Grande, Vaca reaches, 40 
Rivera, Captain, commands 
California expedition, 260- 
266 
Roberval, French explorer, 150 
Robidoux, fur traders, 252 
Rodriguez, Fray Agustin, leads 
expedition to New Mexico, 
266 
Rogel, Father, Jesuit in Flor- 
ida, 153; founds mission at 
Orista, 159; returns to Ha- 
vana, 159 
Ruidiaz, La Florida, quoted, 

146 
Russians, threaten Oregon 
coast, 255; Bering's expedi- 
tion, 258; establish trading 
posts, 258 

Sabinal, mission settlement at, 
185 

Sabine River, boundary of 
Texas, 229 (note) 

St. Augustine, settlement, 144, 
154; French plan attack of, 
144; mortality among colo- 
nists, 152; San Antonio garri- 
son withdraws to, 158; de- 
struction by Drake, 162-63 

St. Augustine River, Menen- 
dez discovers, 142 

St. Denis, Louis Juchereau de, 
French explorer, 223; and 
Hidalgo, 223-24; marriage, 
224; Texas expedition, 224- 
225; plans for conquering 



INDEX 



317 



St. Denis — Continued 

Spanish lands, 226; "com- 
mander of the River of 
Canes," 226; meets Aguayo, 
228 

St. John's River (Florida), 
Ponce de Leon at, 7; French 
settlement, 136; Menendez 
at, 144; Gourgues lands 
near, 156 

St. Joseph (Michigan), Spanish 
flag at, 253 

St. Lawrence River, discovered, 
128 

St. Louis, settled, 237; English 
expedition against (1780), 
253; Vial explores to, 254 

St. Lucie River, Spanish fort 
on, 154 

St. Maxent, fur trader, 251 

Salvatierra, Father, Jesuit, 
206; accompanies Kino, 195, 
196; work in Lower Califor- 
nia, 196-97, 202-05; called 
to Mexico, 205 

San Antonio (Florida), Father 
Rogel at, 154; garrison with- 
draws from, 158 

San Antonio (Texas), mission 
founded, 226; Aguayo 
strengthens, 228; communi- 
cation opened with Santa 
Fe, 253-54 

San Antonio (ship), 260, 263, 267 

San Buenaventura, Cabrillo 
lands at, 110 

San Carlos, post erected on 
Pensacola Bay (1698), 218; 
Iberville at, 219 

San Carlos (California), mis- 
sion founded (1770), 267; 
Serra at, 279 

San Carlos (ship), 260, 262, 263 

San Clemente Island, Cabrillo 
discovers, 110 

San Diego, Bay of, Cabrillo 
discovers, 109 

San Diego, Vizcaino names, 
115 



San Diego de Alcala, mission, 
263, 279 

San Francisco, mission founded 
in Texas, 216 

San Francisco (California), col- 
ony, 273; founded (1776), 
276 

San Francisco, New Kingdom 
of, 87 

San Francisco Bay, discovered, 
266; occupation of, 268 

San Gabriel mission, 199 

San Jos6 (California) founded, 
276 

San Jose (ship), 260 

San Juan (New Mexico), 
Ofiate at, 173 

San Juan, Fort, Boyano at, 
153 

San Juan Capistrano mission, 
287-89 

San Luis Rey mission, 285 

San Martin, Father, at Mission 
San Gabriel, 199 

San Mateo, Fort, Fort Caro- 
line, rechristened, 146; death 
of colonists at, 152; Me- 
nendez establishes perma- 
nent settlement at, 154; 
French reprisal at, 156-57 

San Miguel Bay, Vizcaino 
gives name of San Diego, 115 

San Miguel de Gualdape, 
settlement, 17 

San Miguel Island, Cabrillo 
lands on, 110, 111 

San Pelayo, Menendez's ship, 
141 

San Quentin, Cabrillo takes 
possession of, 109 

San Xavier del Bac Kino 
builds mission, 198, 199 

Sanchez, Manuela, St. Denis 
marries, 224 

Sanlucar, De Soto sails from, 
48 

Santa Ana, Manila galleon 
burned by Cavendish, 113, 
114 



318 



INDEX 



Santa Barbara (California), 
founded (1786), 279 (note); 
Franciscans at, 286 

Santa Barbara (Mexico), post 
established, 165 

Santa Catalina Island, Cabrillo 
discovers, 110 

Santa Cruz, Cortes names 
Lower California, 106 

Santa Cruz de la Canada (New 
Mexico), 179, 183 

Santa Cruz de Nanipacna 
(Alabama), Arellano sends 
colonists to, 131-32 

Santa Elena (Port Royal), 
Arellano attempts coloni- 
zation, 130-32; Villafane at- 
tempts settlement, 133; 
Menendez at, 150, 151, 154; 
see also Port Royal 

Santa Fe, 183; founded, 177; 
Spanish settlement, 179; 
military governors at, 181; 
Pike's impression of, 186-87; 
communication with San 
Antonio opened, 253-54 

Santa Fe Trail, Vial's route 
approximates, 254 

Santa Maria, Bay of (Chesa- 
peake Bay), Menendez plans 
to fortify, 150; see also 
Chesapeake Bay 

Santa Maria, Fray Juan de, 
with expedition to New 
Mexico, 166; killed, 167 

Santa Monica, Bay of, Cabrillo 
discovers, 110 

Santo Domingo, Indian slaves 
taken to, 13; Ayllon returns 
to, 18; Vaca goes to, 44; 
sacking of, 162 

Saturiba, Indian chief in 
Florida, 156 

Savannah settled (1733), 163 

Sebastian, Indian guide, 270 

Sedelmayr, Jesuit missionary, 
201 

Sedeno, Father, Jesuit mission- 
ary in Georgia, 159 



Segura, Juan Bautista de, 
Jesuit missionary, 159 

Serra, Junipero, Franciscan 
friar, expedition to Cali- 
fornia, 259; appreciation of, 
277-81 

Seven Cities, stories influence 
Spanish explorers, 79; called 
Cibola, 82; see also Cibola 

Seven Years' War, 163, 231 

Silva, Juan de, Franciscan in 
Florida, 160 

Sinaloa, Guzman's conquest of, 
80; Jesuits in, 191 

Skinner, C. L., Adventurers of 
Oregon, cited, 277 (note) 

Slave trade, among the Spani- 
ards, 4; Indians seized, 12, 
43 

Soto, Hernando de, crosses 
Mississippi River, 10; finds 
Greek's dagger, 24 (note); 
Governor of Florida, 44; and 
Vaca, 44; expedition, 46 et 
seq., 98, 103, 153; death, 73; 
methods work ill, 189 

South Carolina, explored by 
Pardo, 153; missionary effort 
in, 159; missions in, 160, 191; 
see also Carolina 

Spain, in 16th century, 1-2; 
explorers seek New World, 
2-4; reasons for failure to 
settle Atlantic mainland, 
133-34; defeat of Armada, 
163; and France, 226; trade, 
230; and Americans, 255- 
256 

Steiger, Jesuit missionary, 
201 

Talon brothers, accompany St. 
Denis, 223 

Tampa Bay, Narvaez lands at, 
20; De Soto at, 49; Domini- 
can monks reach, 124; Me- 
nendez establishes posts, 151, 
154; Indian massacre at, 
158 



INDEX 



319 



Taos, Coronado sends explor- 
ing party to, 102; annual fair 
at, 185 

Tegesta, Brother Villareal at, 
154 

Tennessee, De Soto in, 51, 59 

Teran, Domingo, expedition to 
Texas, 216-17 

Texas, De Soto's expedition in, 
51, 75-77; missions in, 191; 
explorations in, 207 et seq.\ 
French descend upon, 226; 
settlements (1722), 228; 
boundary, 223; annexed to 
United States, 257; bibli- 
ography, 301 

Teyas Indians, Coronado 
among, 100 

Theodoro, Greek with Nar- 
vaez's expedition, 60 

Thome, mission settlement at, 
185 

Tolosa, Diego de, Dominican 
monk, accompanies Fray 
Luis Cancer, 123 

Tonty, La Salle's lieutenant, 
210, 211, 215, 216 

Treaties, Philip II's treaty 
with France (1559), 135 

Trudeau, explorer with Cla- 
morgan's Company, 255 

Turco, El, see El Turco 

Tusayan, Coronado sends ex- 
pedition to, 91 

Ulloa, Francisco de, Cortes 
sends expedition under, 107 

Ulloa, Juan Antonio de, first 
Spanish Governor of Louisi- 
ana, 237-41 

United States, buys Louisiana, 
256; later additions to, 257 

Unzaga, Luis de. Governor of 
Louisiana, 249 

Urdaneta, Andres de, Legazpi 
sends from Philippines, 112- 
113 

Urrutia, Jose, deserts to In- 
dians, 217 



Utah added to United States, 
257 

Vaca, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de, 
with Narvaez, 20, 21, 25; 
quoted, 23, 24, 26-27, 30. 
32-33, 34; castaway on 
"Malhado" Island, 25, 26 
et seq.; as Medicine Man, 29- 
30, 31, 39, 41-42; becomes a 
trader, 31-33; journey to 
Mexico, 35-44, 120; goes to 
Spain, 44, 80; later life, 45; 
Narrative, 166 

Vallejo, Father, attends St. 
Denis's funeral, 229 

Vancouver, George, cited, 279 

Vargas, Diego de, expedition 
against New Mexico, 180 

Velarde, Father, describes 
death of Kino, 201 

Velasco, Captain Luis de, com- 
panion of Onate, 175; ward- 
robe of, 171-72 

Velasco, Mexican Viceroy, 
equips expedition for Far 
East, 112; and Vizcaino, 114; 
sends out Florida colony, 
130, 131 

Vera Cruz, French menace, 213 

Vial, Pedro, explorations, 254 

Villafane, Angel de, replaces 
Arellano as leader, 132-33, 
134 

Villalobos, Lopez de, expedi- 
tion to the Philippines, 108, 
112 

Villareal, Brother, Jesuit in 
Florida, 153 

Villere, leader in Louisiana 
revolt, 246 

Villere, Madame, inventory of 
furniture of, 236 

Virginia, Spanish attempt to 
colonize, 151 

Vizcaino, Sebastian, colonizes 
Lower California, 114; ex- 
plorations in California, 115- 
119, 170, 176, 265 



320 



INDEX 



West, River of the, legend of, 
118 

White, plants colony in 
Guiana, 162 

White Rock, People of the, at 
Acoma, 174 

Wichita Indians, Coronado 
reaches, 101 

Wilkinson, James, plans fili- 
bustering raid, 257 

Winship, G. P., The Coronado 
Expedition, quoted, 93 



Ybarbo, Gil, fur trader, 251 
Yucatan, exploration of, 9 
Yuma Indians, Diaz meets, 92; 
trade, 186; Anza among, 
270; members of California 
colony remain with, 273-74 

Zaidivar, Juan de, slain at 

Acoma, 174 
Zufii, Espejo goes to, 168 
Zuni Indians, hostility to 

Spaniards, 90 



JAN 281949 











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